Piece of Darkness II - Gambit
by Proud to be Plug
Summary: Cyrus Wright has taken his first steps on his journey through the darkness - but he will soon discover that the shadows are deeper and more dangerous than he had ever imagined. Second book in the Piece of Darkness series.
1. Chapter One

**Author's Note: The wait for this installment of Piece of Darkness was a lot shorter, wasn't it? I have it all written, so you'll be getting a weekly update. There's twenty chapters, so you'll have a chapter a week for the next twenty weeks! **

**Remember, this fic is the second in a series. Piece of Darkness I - A Knight or a Pawn is the first in the series, and if you don't read that before this you'll only have a half-assed idea of what's going on.**

**Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter One**

* * *

_"Take an eye for an eye!_

_Turn your heart into stone!_

_This is all I have lived for!_

_This is all I have known!"_

–Jean Valjean, 'Les Miserables'

* * *

Play has begun.

The pieces have been prepared and set out, the players have sat down to the game, and the opening moves have been made.

So what comes next? What comes next in this terrible game of chess, a game which has brought such terrible consequences upon so many? What comes next in this story of raging darkness and flickering light?

As in any chess match, one thing inevitably follows the initial moves: the game's first gambit, when one of the players makes some sacrifice so as to gain an overall advantage.

This is the story of that gambit.

* * *

I closed the door behind me, and frowned.

Everything in our apartment seemed fine - there were no tell-tale broken windows, open doors or burning buildings - but I had a vague sense that something was amiss. My parents were both out, and I was just arriving home from the library (it was the middle of June, and I was already deep into my summer reading list), so our home was silent - eerily so.

I shook my head, shifted my bag of books from my left hand to my right and began climbing the stairs. I was probably just being paranoid - excessively so. After all, no-one had even _tried_ to kidnap me since that one time a son of Erebus had chloroformed me and took me to his lair on the other side of the country, so surely I had nothing to worry about!

But as I always say, getting kidnapped is like riding a bike - you never forget.

I walked across the landing towards my bedroom door. As my mind drifted back to the events of the previous summer, I thought of Camp Half-Blood. I hadn't been there since Easter, and I was hopeful that I could put off going back for another few weeks. After all, things had been very quiet for the last few months, and this lack of drama was starting to make the idea of an imminent, terrible war seem pretty daft.

With this encouraging thought on my mind, I opened my bedroom door to find Jake Wilson - the aforementioned chloroforming, kidnapping son of Erebus - sitting at my chess table, calmly gazing out the window.

(What was that I was saying about things being quiet? Why must the universe _always_ contradict me?)

I shouted out (as if that was going to do any good), and plunged my hand into my bag, wildly searching for my dagger, but I quickly realised that I'd left it in my bedroom that morning. In fact, I'd left it on the table, so it was now sitting right in front of the Dark One.

I paused to give the intruding demigod one of my evilest glares. His chair - _my_ chair - was a little removed from the table, and the son of Erebus sat in it with an easy grace: his feet stretched out before him, his arms resting on the chair's sides. He hadn't moved a muscle when I'd opened the door, and was still steadily staring out the window. I drew in a preparatory breath, gathering myself, intending to rush at the son of Erebus in an attempt to do him bodily harm, when he looked around.

"Oh, hi there," Jake Wilson said calmly, as though we were in fact good friends. "I was hoping you'd arrive soon. By all means, sit down. I'm here to talk."

"You're…what?" I said slowly, slightly confused that he hadn't immediately tried to kill or kidnap me.

"I come, on this one occasion, in peace," he said coolly, watching me with a hint of mirth in his dark eyes. "Sit down."

I stood in the doorway for a long, tense moment, before huffing in distaste and marching over to my bed. I kept a close eye on the intruding demigod as I reached underneath the bed for my fold-up stool.

(Nico's visits had been increasingly frequent over the past year, and after listening to him whine endlessly about having to sit on my bed, I'd given in and bought the stool.)

I dropped my bag onto the bed and moved towards my table. Still watching Wilson as though he was a wild animal, I opened up the stool and placed it opposite him.

"How did you get in here?" I asked as I sat down.

"I suppose you're wondering about the wards," Wilson said promptly. "Well, the security measures that Nico and the Hecate kids put in are very efficient - they keep out anyone who intends to do you harm, but since I _don't_ intend to do you harm today, I walked in without a problem."

I eyed Wilson carefully. It was a little worrying that he knew so much about my protections, but then it didn't really surprise me. What did surprise me, though, was that he didn't have his sword, that his aura was so calm, and that he did not have the intimidating air which had surrounded him the last few times I'd seen him. I was very reluctant to believe it, but it looked very likely that the son of Erebus was telling the truth about not coming to do me harm.

"Then what _do_ you want?" I said, though not as brusquely. It's hard to keep up the antagonism when your mortal enemy suddenly starts acting like a normal human being.

"Oh, I was in the area, thought I'd drop by," Jake said airily. I gave him a blank look, and he added, "Though I _was_ wondering… have they told you about the _prontos profiteia_ yet?"

Wilson had first mentioned this mysterious prophecy back in the good old days when he'd been nice enough to kidnap me. I'd asked Nico about it, but he'd been as clueless as me, and I hadn't gotten a good moment to ask Chiron, the ancient centaur who seemed to know everything.

"No," I said flatly, "and you didn't risk coming here to ask me stupid things like that, so why don't you cut the crap and get to the point?"

Wilson didn't reply, but sighed heavily. He closed his eyes and rubbed them, seeming almost weary. Now that he wasn't looking, I examined him more closely. He looked a little older, a little more worn. His tanned, handsome face was not yet lined with age, but it seemed a little too drawn, a little too pained. He wore the same leather jacket, T-shirt and jeans, and he had grown a little taller. Despite having an air of tiredness, though, he seemed, strangely, stronger and more powerful.

I felt a new emotion as I looked him over. I still had that sense of instinctive dislike which I'd borne towards the half-blood ever since I'd first seen him downstairs in my father's shop. Now, though, this was accompanied by a strange sense of familiarity. It was not that I felt like I knew him, exactly, but I felt as if I had some kind of old, deep and completely inexplicable bond with the son of Erebus.

Wilson opened his eyes, and I quickly looked away before he could catch me looking at him. I didn't want the kidnapper to think I was interested in what he had to say, after all.

"Remember when we last met?" he said quietly, glancing out the window again.

"No," I said drily. "When was that? It must have been so fleeting, I can't recall it. Was I unconscious or something?"

Jake rolled his eyes, and for just a moment he looked like a normal guy. Even though I knew he was probably here to try to make me join his crazy fight against the gods, that glimpse of normality made me happy to listen to what he had to say.

"I remember," I added. "What about it?"

"I know you don't believe anything I told you," the son of Erebus said, straightening up in his seat. "I know that you don't want to join me, but did you wonder, even for a minute, why I choose this? Why I hate the gods?"

I thought back to that chat we'd had in my tiny cell.

"You told me why," I replied. "You believe that the gods killed your mother."

"Oh, yeah," Wilson said, "I forgot I told you that." He paused, looking thoughtful, and dragged his chair closer to the table so that he was sitting squarely across from me. "You don't believe it, though, right? You think I'm deluded or that I'm just crazy?"

"Well…" I considered that for a moment. I certainly didn't believe that the gods had killed Jake's mother just because they didn't like him, but nor did I think that he was nuts enough to completely make something like that up.

"I don't really know," I told him, meeting his eyes. "I don't believe anything you say, but I don't completely disbelieve what you told me."

Jake laughed - a normal, calm laugh, rather than the crazy, angry laugh you'd hear from a corny villain. "I admire your honesty, Cyrus," he said cheerfully. "It's annoying, but it's nice to talk to someone who doesn't feel compelled to grovel."

"If you could see things the way I can, you'd be this honest, too," I said, not thinking. The words had barely left my lips before I started cursing myself for giving away far too much information. I'd studiously avoided telling Wilson anything about my sight, and now in a moment of stupidity I'd given him the thread he could use to draw out everything.

Wilson seemed unsurprised, however. Instead of starting to question me, he said, "Oh, I meant to mention that."

I eyed him warily. What fresh hell was this?

"They haven't told you about the prophecy yet, but have they told you that you have pure sight?" Wilson asked coolly, as he picked up one of my chess pieces and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Pure _what_?" I said flatly. I really don't appreciate being reminded how little I know.

"Your sight, Cyrus," Wilson said, in that vaguely supercilious tone which made me want to introduce his head to the wall. "It's not just clear sight, which one mortal out of a hundred thousand has. The sight you have is something that comes along once in a generation - maybe not even that often."

I stared at him. I wasn't sure what to be more astonished by - the fact that he knew so much about my sight or the fact that he seemed to know more than I did. A sudden hope lit up my mind - perhaps, in an ironic twist, the Dark One would be the person who'd finally answer my questions?

"But what _is_ it?" I asked, rather hopefully. "What is pure sight?"

I held my breath in anticipation, watching Jake carefully. He did not look at me, still examining the chess piece, and shrugged.

"That's a story for another day," he said softly. "I just thought I'd give you a little thread to pull, but I'm not here to tell you about yourself."

"Then why _are_ you here?" I retorted sharply, annoyed by his refusal to give me the answers for which I'd been praying.

"I am here," Wilson replied slowly, "to tell you about _my_self."

"What could you possibly tell me that I actually need to know?"

"As I was saying," the son of Erebus said, putting down the chess piece, "I believe - I _know_ that the gods killed my mother. You don't trust me - which is understandable, I did kidnap you - and so I came here today to prove to you that I am right about my mother, and that the gods are even more ruthless than you think."

Wilson reached into his inside jacket pocket. I tensed, prepared for him to withdraw a weapon (although if he had a weapon, me _tensing_ wasn't exactly going to do anything), but instead he took out a piece of dark rock, about the size of a tennis ball. He placed it in the middle of the chessboard, and I examined it.

The rock was, in fact, a chunk of obsidian. It was very shiny, reflecting the sunlight, and had several edges which looked sharp enough to cut carrots. After I'd been looking at it for a few seconds, I realised that it had a very faint aura - it was difficult to make out in the direct sunlight, but I could just about see it - a dark, hazy outline which rippled, almost imperceptibly, with tiny waves of energy.

"This is a memory stone," Wilson explained. "It was taken from the banks of the River Lethe and infused with a memory. Stones like this can take on a powerful memory, storing it, and that memory can be experienced by others if someone can find a way to activate the stone."

"How do you activate it?" I asked automatically.

"The powers of a shadow demigod can unlock it," he answered. "With a single touch of darkness, I can release the memory held in that rock into the minds of me, and anyone else near to me."

A dull chill crept down my spine. I had a pretty strong feeling that I wasn't going to like whatever was trapped in this stone.

"So what is it?" I asked, meeting his gaze again. "What are you going to make me see?"

Jake Wilson placed his palm upon the piece of obsidian, and closed his eyes. Shadows began to float from the rock, billowing out in cloudy waves, streaming over Wilson and me. My vision began to dim, the sunlight fading. Just before the darkness claimed us completely, I heard Wilson murmur something, almost too quietly to hear,. It took a second for me to understand what he'd said.

"My mother's death."

* * *

First, there was pure darkness.

I could see nothing, hear nothing and feel nothing, except for a slow cold breeze that seemed to blow from all angles. I could sense Wilson near to me, but I could not tell if he was to my left, right, or above or below me.

A moment passed, a very quiet, still moment. Then, the darkness began to lighten, softening into a very, very dark blue, then into a grey, then, all at once, it faded away utterly, and we were suddenly floating in the sky.

We were suspended miles above the ground - far below, I could see a city, but it looked little more than a vague blot on the ground. At first, I was too stunned to even react, and I simply stared around blankly.

That soon changed when we began to hurtle towards the ground.

One minute we were completely still - the next, we were steaming downwards. I'm not ashamed to say that I let out a terrified scream - who wouldn't? I twisted about in the air and caught sight of Jake, a few yards away. He, too, was falling at an ominous speed, but his expression was composed - clearly, this was all to be expected.

I took a small measure of comfort from that, and managed to stop myself screaming. We fell and fell, tumbling through the air, slowing only when we were within touching distance of the city's taller buildings. I realised, as we began to hover once more, that we were actually suspended over Chicago. I looked around: judging by the height of the sun above us and the depth of the traffic below us, it was late afternoon. The cars were tightly packed in long lines which stretched on into the distance, and the streets were busy with the melee of people swarming away from school or work.

"My mother was coming to pick me up from school," Wilson said, making me start. He'd floated over next to me - by this point, we'd stopped falling completely - and was now surveying the hubbub below with a look of resigned morbidity. "Normally I walked home from school, but this afternoon, I got in a fight and she had to come and collect me."

We began to float even further downwards, drifting along streets as we did so, snaking through the metropolis like ghosts with a plan. Finally, we came to a halt over a busy intersection, where four streets met. We hovered about twenty or thirty feet above the ground, but not a single glance was cast our way - proof that this was nothing more than a memory, an echo.

"There she is," Wilson said softly, pointing at a blue, old Volkswagen near the front of one of the lines of traffic. I squinted, trying to see the driver of the car. I concentrated, and reached for my sight.

The scene around us grew a little wispy, presumably as my sight showed me that it was nothing more than a sort of memory construct. I ignored that, instead focussing on Jake's mother. It was hard to make out her physical appearance, but she looked of a similar build to Jake. She was tall, with dark hair, and she was tensed behind the wheel as though eagerly awaiting something. Surprisingly, she had an aura - very faint, nowhere near as strong as that of a demigod's, but there nonetheless. I glanced at Wilson, and then back at her: their auras were very similar in colour, but the son of Erebus's was far stronger and larger.

Slowly, the traffic creeped along until the Volkswagen reached the very top of the line.

"Now it happens," Jake said, his voice dull.

The lights changed and the Volkswagen moved, speeding up as it crossed through the intersection. As it reached the halfway point between the road it had been on and the road it was heading onto, a very strange thing occurred.

A sudden bolt of light shot down from the sky, zooming past Jake and me. It wasn't lightning, but something else - perhaps a bolt of pure energy, perhaps even a spirit of some kind. It seemed to come from nowhere, and when I looked at it, my eyes throbbed from the power gathered around it. It emanated a sheer, cosmic intensity which I'd come across only once before - and that had been in the aura of an Olympian.

The bolt, unobserved by any of the people below, flew directly into the Volkswagen. The car shook as it absorbed the energy, and then suddenly accelerated. I focussed, trying to use my sight to see what was happening to it, and I made out a dull sheen of energy that had suddenly formed around the car, but I felt like there was something behind it that was just out of sight, some force that was concealed.

I could see the frantic movements of Jake's mother as she tried to regain control of the vehicle, but it seemed that there was nothing she could do. The car careered out of its lane and, in the blink of an eye, smashed into a passing SUV.

The traffic ground to a halt, and people began jumping out of their cars, hurrying over to the crash site. As the sounds of ambulance and police sirens began to echo down the street, the city began to grow wispy, the buildings, people and vehicles dissolving into mist. In a moment, everything had faded to grey, then black.

* * *

My eyes shot open.

We were back in my bedroom, sitting at my table. I pulled my hand away from the obsidian as though it was an angry crocodile, but it didn't matter now. The memory had been shared, and there was no way to get it out of my mind. Jake stowed the stone away in his jacket, making no sound, merely meeting my horrified gaze with an immovable expression.

"What was that?" I whispered. "Was that… the Olympians?"

He nodded.

"How do you know?"

"The being that gave me this memory told me so," Jake replied.

"And who gave it to you?"

"That doesn't matter right now," he said, shaking his head. "The being I serve, who I have served ever since it revealed this to me."

"You're talking about Rhea?" I said.

Wilson didn't reply.

I shook my head in disbelief. I had never trusted the gods, but I hadn't thought they would deliberately kill someone, particularly in what seemed like such a random way. It was so odd, so uncalled-for.

But then Jake had said that it had been done because of him. But why would they kill his mother, and not him?

"Why—" I started to say, then paused, gathering my thoughts. "Why did they kill your mother? Why not just kill you?"

Wilson didn't reply right away, his eyes remaining downcast. It was only after a long moment that he answered, "A son of Erebus is a powerful ally. The gods thought that if they killed my mother, it would break me, making me need them, making me want to be a part of their world."

I said nothing. That made a scarily large amount of sense.

"You see now," Wilson said, glaring out the window. "You see now why I fight the gods. I didn't just decide in a fit of annoyance to try to tear down Olympus. The Olympians did this to me, and they are the ones who must pay."

He met my eyes, and I finally understood why he was showing me this - he wanted me to know exactly why he did what he did, because he didn't want to me think of him as some irrational lunatic. The demigod knew that I would still fight him, but he wanted me to understand what it was that I defended. Suddenly, the sunlight which was between us - for we were both in shadow, and a beam of light cut through the air above the table - seemed to me to be an impenetrable, uncrossable barrier.

I was struck by the enormity of the situation, and yet it was caused by one simple moment, one single car crash. It took only a few seconds, but the fate of the world depended on whether it was a mere accident or a purposeful act of murder.

"It's all begun now," Jake said, standing up. "This could be our last opportunity to talk. That's why I wanted to show you this. I don't expect you to join me, but I want you to remember every time you work to help the gods that you are helping the beings who struck down my mother. As you kill the creatures that will be loosed on you and your friends, I want you to ask who the _real_ monsters are."

"But doesn't this make you just like them?" I said, also rising. "Surely by fighting them, by trying to tear down _civilisation_, you're becoming a monster too?"

"Maybe," the son of Erebus said calmly, holding my gaze unflinchingly. "Maybe I _am_ turning into a monster." He paused, and glanced down at his feet before concluding, "But then maybe the only way to destroy a monster is to become one."

Without looking at me again, Wilson turned and strode out of my room. I followed him, but by the time I'd made it onto the landing, he had vanished into the shadows.

I sighed.

"Well," I said aloud. "So much for having a quiet summer."


	2. Chapter Two

**Author's Note: Don't forget to review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

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**Chapter Two**

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_"Tricia began to feel that the world was conspiring against her."_

–Douglas Adams, 'Mostly Harmless'

* * *

I got to camp just before lunchtime the next day.

When my parents had come home a few hours after Wilson's disappearance, I'd explained the situation to them, as briefly as possible. They were, as ever, ridiculously calm about the whole matter. I knew why - apparently, at some point before I was born, they had had a mysterious Visitor, who had told them all about the world of the gods and, most importantly, about my fate. I didn't know how much they'd been told, but they knew enough to be relatively unsurprised by most of the craziness that had gone on last summer.

Despite my hopes of staying at home, going to camp was pretty unavoidable now. If Wilson's war was getting ramped up, Chiron would want me safe and in training. So, the day after the son of Erebus' visit, I left for camp. Percy, Nico's goofy cousin, had mentioned something once about getting the Chariot of Damnation to and from camp, but the name of said mythological taxi service didn't exactly make me feel comfortable about using its service.

After negotiating my way through a worryingly familiar series of bus trips and walks, I reached Half-Blood Hill. Peleus, the camp's guardian dragon, was snoozing at his post around the massive pine tree, though he stirred briefly as I tiptoed by.

As I walked down the other side of the hill, it struck me how camp looked exactly as it had when I'd first arrived with Nico and Bob, just over a year ago. It was perhaps a little busier, but it was unchanged outside of that. This wasn't surprising, but it made me think of how much I'd changed in the last year: frequent training sessions had made me more muscular than I'd ever been in my life, and my many talks with Nico meant that I was much more informed about the Greek world than I had been last year.

Despite how much more I knew, however, I still didn't know the things that were really important to me, like why I could see things the way I could, and why Chiron and the gods were so sure that I was going to play a crucial role in Wilson's war.

I headed for the Big House right away to see Chiron. On the way, I passed a few campers who I knew as acquaintances, and a few others who I knew as… well, "enemies" would be too strong a term, but let's just say that they weren't exactly my strongest supporters.

I'd developed something of a reputation around camp - being fully mortal in a camp of teenagers who are half-god can do that. It didn't help that there were a lot of people, people like Zack Walker, who thought it was a disgrace to camp that I was being trained and treated like I was a half-blood. In a way, I agreed with them. I _wasn't_ the son of a god, and I sure didn't want to be one, but more and more it seemed as though I was being forced to act like one.

I didn't find Chiron on the farmhouse porch, so I went inside, expecting to find him in his office. I looked around all the rooms on the ground floor, even the rec room, but he wasn't to be found. It was odd, because normally whenever I came to see him at the Big House, he'd been either in the office working or on the porch playing pinochle - a game which had been forcefully taught to me the last time I'd encountered the wine dude. Finally, I paused at the foot of the stairs, listening intently for any give-away noises.

After a moment, I made out the quiet sounds of people talking in a room above me. I strained my ears to try to hear who they were.

(I know eavesdropping is not really a good thing to do, but I don't care, okay?)

There were two voices, both deep. One was so low I couldn't make out what he or she was saying, but I recognised the tones of the other: they were clearly those of my centaur trainer, Chiron.

I started up the stairs instinctively, wondering what was going on. I had no clue who Chiron was talking to, and even as I drew nearer and heard more of their voices, I didn't recognise the lower voice - all I could tell was that it was a male one.

I reached the second floor and headed across the landing, in the direction of the voices. Most of the doors up here were locked - I had never actually been up here before. The voices were coming from behind a door at the other end of the landing, and I tiptoed over to it. I paused outside it, listening, but their tones were so hushed, I could only make out odd words which gave no indication of what they were talking about. After a brief moment of hesitation, I finally knocked on the door.

Immediately, the voices fell silent.

_Wow_, I thought. _That's not suspicious at all. _

There was no sound at all for at least a minute. I was about to turn away, when suddenly the door opened with a quickness and abruptness which clearly suggested that the person opening it had been standing at the doorknob for a long, tense moment.

"Oh, hello, Cyrus," Chiron said, a mixture of surprise and relief in his tone. He looked the same as ever, more or less, but there was a little tautness in his face, a slight chill behind his eyes.

"Uh, hi," I said evenly. I craned my neck ever so slightly to try to see into the room beyond the centaur, but he was out of his wheelchair and standing square in the door. I could make out only a scrap of wall and a shred of curtain.

"I just got here," I went on, clumsily trying to cover up my attempts to look in by scratching my head and shifting from foot to foot. "Er. I wasn't going to come so soon, but… well, Jake Wilson came to visit me."

Chiron's expression darkened, and he murmured, "He did? Why?"

Something, perhaps the knowledge that the person Chiron was talking to could probably hear me, stopped me from telling the full truth. "I'm not too sure," I lied. "But he was talking about the war and how things are going to get worse."

"Ah," the centaur said, very quietly. He glanced, almost involuntarily, back into the room, and I caught a glimpse of a tall figure in a long cloak standing by a window. Before I could make out any more, Chiron turned back to me, saying, "I'm a little busy now, Cyrus. We should talk about this later." He paused thoughtfully, then added, "Go see Kevin. I think the Hunters will be arriving soon."

I frowned as I tried to remember who the Hunters actually _were_. A vague memory of a girl with dark hair floated in my mind, before it all came back with clarity - Nico had once introduced me to a daughter of Zeus named Thalia Grace by explaining that she was the lieutenant of Artemis' Hunters.

"Who are the Hunters?" I'd asked.

"In honest terms," he'd replied, a gleeful glint in his dark eyes, "they are immortal warrior nuns who kill monsters, live in the forest and hate all us filthy men."

Unsurprisingly, Thalia hadn't been too pleased with that explanation.

"Why are they coming here?" I asked Chiron. "Don't they always stay with Artemis?"

"Sometimes they stay here for a while, when Artemis has to attend to important business on her own," the centaur answered, now shifting from foot to foot - or rather hoof to hoof - himself.

"Okay," I said slowly, still not understanding his instructions. "But why should I go see Kevin?"

"It's tradition for all of camp to have a capture-the-flag game against the Hunters," Chiron said quickly, making a desperate attempt to wind up the conversation by retreating a few steps into the room and closing the door almost all the way. "You and Kevin should work on a strategy for the game. Now, I'll talk to you later!"

"Is Nico here?" I asked, just before the door clicked shut.

"No, I don't think so," came the hurried reply. "I'm not sure where he is."

The door closed, my heart sank a little, and I turned away. Though I'd once found Nico rather annoying, he was now one of the sole attractions of Camp Half-Blood.

When I'd first come to camp, Nico had been the last person I would've expected to befriend, but over the course of the summer we'd found a common ground. The fact that we were both seriously outsiders - me because of my boring mortality, and Nico because so many campers just didn't accept him for his, well, deathliness - played a large role in bringing us together. Furthermore, the son of Hades' willingness to answer any questions I had about all the Greek stuff made him stand out from most demigods, who (sometimes quite literally) wouldn't give me the time of day. All in all, he had become something of an elder brother figure for me.

He _was_ three years older than me (or, as he liked to mention, more like _seventy_-three years), but I have a reputation for getting on better with people older than me.

I made my way back downstairs and onto the porch. I paused there, surveying the camp. Kevin, my son of Ares friend, was probably in a training session, so I figured I'd have to wait till lunch to see him. I realised pretty quickly what Chiron wanted us to do - if a capture-the-flag game was imminent, the two of us were the ones expected to come with a winning strategy.

This was largely because Kevin and I had become known as the camp's leading - that is to say, _only_ - strategist duo. This was less to do with my planning skills and more to do with the fact that I had, in a moment of almost suicidal good will, volunteered to help Kevin become the great strategist everyone knew but didn't believe he could be. This "community service" (as Nico so graciously referred to it) had involved many, many chess matches and many long and complicated discussions which I only pretended to understand.

Kevin really was a great strategist, as good as someone from the Athena cabin, but the problem was his confidence. He'd gotten comfortable with me over time and had started doing daring things like performing excellent chess maneuvers, but when the time came to share his plans with the world, his willpower crumbled, leading him to produce strategies which involved worryingly large amounts of praying and hoping.

Still, Chiron had confidence in Kevin's ability to perform - and my ability to _make_ him perform - so we were continuously being given opportunities to fail— I mean, practice.

I liked Kevin, but working with him could be a frustrating process. I had to be, at various times, a motivational expert, a thoughtful strategist, an optimist, a pragmatist and a reality-enforcer. I still don't quite understand why I'd agreed to do it, but I figured that, just like my life in general, there was some grand plot behind it all.

My mental ramblings were interrupted by someone materialising out of thin air in a shadowy corner on the other side of the porch.

This didn't alarm me as much as you'd expect. When a son of Hades has a pathological dislike for going through doors, you get used to people shimmering into sudden existence in corners behind doors and shadowy nooks behind kitchen appliances.

Don't ask.

This time, the person emerging from the shadows was Jane Welles, daughter of Nyx.

"Hi, Cyrus!" she exclaimed, striding over to me. "I didn't think you'd be here already!"

I shrugged, smiling a little. Jane's emphatic cheerfulness was frequently annoying - often because there was something about it that seemed a little fake - but when it was genuine, it was infectious.

"Oh, you know," I said airily, unwilling to even mention Jake Wilson again. "Something came up."

"Well, it's good to see you," the daughter of Nyx said, giving me a quick hug.

If Nico was my elder brother, Jane was my younger sister. I hadn't seen her as often as Nico, even when I was at camp, because her good-natured and extroverted character meant that she'd quickly made a number of friends. All the same, I felt a closeness to her, a feeling which came from how we'd been introduced to camp at the same time (and also how she'd come to help rescue me when Wilson had kidnapped me - ah, memories). We frequently had the same classes at the same time, and on the road of discovering our mythy nature (as I call it), we walked together.

We talked for a while, catching up. I'd seen her only three or four times since Christmas, as she, unlike Nico, actually went to school. Despite Jane's cheerful acceptance of her half-blood nature, she did more than many other demigods to stay rooted in her mortal life. Because of this, she was the only half-blood who I could talk to without being mournfully reminded of the supposedly imminent apocalyptic war.

Just as I thought of this, the universe managed to contradict me, for Jane took a sharp turn off Cheerful Chat Avenue, veering onto Graveyard Grumbles Boulevard.

"So what came up?" she asked, giving me a level gaze.

"Jake Wilson," I said glumly. I'd been hoping to avoid talking about the son of Erebus until I spoke with Chiron again, but the universe _really_ likes to contradict me.

"_What_?" Jane cried. "Did he try to kidnap you again?"

I shook my head. "He just wanted to talk." I quickly recounted the previous morning's incidents, heavily editing the whole seeing-Jake's-mother-get-killed-by-Olympian-lightn ing thing down to make it sound much less dark and depressing that it had actually been. I still hadn't processed that memory, and I didn't want to dump the full weight of it into Jane's mind, too.

Despite my editing efforts, though, by the time I finished, Jane's good mood had been thoroughly vanquished.

"Well, I guess it's nice of him to tell you that he's getting ready to destroy the world," she said flatly, gazing darkly at camp.

"To be fair, he's only trying to destroy western civilisation," I pointed out.

"Oh, good. That's fine, then."

We stood, for a few minutes, in the kind of silence always found among those poor souls who happen to be contemplating the apocalypse. I was quite relieved when the lunch horn blew and disturbed our pessimistic reveries.

"Mind you," Jane said suddenly, as we made our way to the dining pavilion, "I think I prefer knowing in advance that an apocalypse is coming, right?"

"True," I nodded. "Anyway, you're a demigod. Apocalypses are your bread and butter."

"Right!" she said. "I've always wanted to save the world from total obliteration."

* * *

I didn't get to talk to Kevin till after lunch, as the camp's rule about eating at other cabins' tables applied even to me. Instead, I caught up a bit with the Hermes campers, who took a certain pride in being the cabin that housed the camp's pet mortal. I couldn't help but think that they viewed me as some kind of mascot.

Anna Fields, the Hermes counsellor, welcomed me back to camp with the slightly edgy air that many demigods had when they were talking to me - it was probably because they still didn't really know why I was at camp.

(_I_ didn't even really know why I was at camp, so I understood where they were coming from.)

"I wasn't really sure if I'd see you back," she said, her blue eyes scanning my face with interest, "and I definitely didn't think you'd be here so soon."

"I just thought I needed some more training," I said airily, starting to feel quite practiced at wafting away unwanted questions. "You can never have too much, right?"

This very quickly devolved into most of the Hermes campers trying to come up with a decent argument for _not_ training. I didn't quite understand why they were so inclined to laziness, seeing that their dad was the god of travel, but then maybe there's a certain lethargy that comes from the strains of constant kleptomania.

Finally, as lunch ended and the campers drifted off to their activities, I got over to Kevin, who was loitering at the Ares table, waiting for me.

"Hey, Hannibal," I said, exchanging a quick, manly hug. "What's up?

(Hannibal was a largely ironic nickname - naming a very un-warlike son of Ares after one history's greatest military commanders was my idea of a joke.)

"Cyrus!" he said, his tone showing the surprise that seemed to be felt by pretty much the entire camp. "I—"

"—didn't think you'd see me here so soon, I know," I cut in. "Please, don't. I've heard that enough already. How are you?"

We strolled out of the dining pavilion together. I was forcefully reminded of my first walk with Kevin, when I'd promised to help him with his strategist's block. I examined him a little: he was taller than he had been last year, of course, and his shoulders had broadened out a little. That sense of anxiety which had pressed upon him when we'd first met was lightened somewhat, though it was not gone completely.

"I'm pretty good," Kevin said cheerfully. I'd last saw him when I'd briefly visited camp during Easter, and he'd made a breakthrough then by beating me at chess without my motivation.

"I had a good last month at school," he went on.

"A good month at school? What's that? Is it some new scientific experiment?"

"It's a rare thing," he conceded. "But I'm getting more confident. Unfortunately I might have to be getting glasses soon, though, so that might not help…"

We strolled as far as the lake, chatting all the while. This was what I liked best about Camp Half-Blood: it had brought me more friends than I'd ever had in my life, and that was something I could genuinely thank the gods for.

"So did you hear the Hunters are coming here?" I asked him, as we stood at the lakeside, watching the canoeing class paddle furiously as they raced from one side to the other.

"Yeah," Kevin nodded mournfully. "Camp has never beaten them, not even when Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace were both here together."

"We'll think of something," I assured him. "That was probably down to luck. They're not unbeatable. No one is."

Suddenly, a shout echoed across camp. I looked around, alarmed, wildly thinking that Wilson had already begun an attack, but it was nothing so dramatic. Another shout reached us, and this time I understood it.

"The Hunters are here!"

Instinctively, I turned towards Half-Blood Hill. Sure enough, the silver-clad Hunters of Artemis were streaming down towards us.

Boy, did they look formidable.

They bounded down the hill like deer, and though most of them were short in stature, their auras were unbelievable. They glowed like the moon itself, and I felt sure that even if I didn't have my augmented sight, I'd be able to see those bright auras. They were laden down with weaponry - bows and arrows mainly, though I saw some spears and a couple of samurai swords. They advanced in a clearly practiced maneuver, making barely a sound, and it occurred to me that if they had come to invade camp, we'd nearly be overrun already.

Kevin turned to me, his face smooth and devoid of emotion, and he said, rather quietly, "You were saying?"


	3. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Three**

* * *

_"It's hard to enjoy a practical joke when your whole life feels like one."_

–Rick Riordan, 'Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

* * *

The Hunters went to the Big House first, where Chiron greeted them on the porch. Then, with the speed that comes only with familiarity, they trooped off to the cabin area. The usually-vacant Artemis cabin was, of course, where they were to stay while at camp.

All this I registered only vaguely, however, because I was too busy freaking out at the side of the lake.

"Jesus _Christ_," I cursed.

(I have never gotten the hang of cursing in Greek terms. "Holy Zeus" just doesn't have the same _oomph_ as "Jesus Christ".)

"How the hell are we supposed to fight against that? They aren't _human_," I went on, rubbing my brow.

"Neither am I," Kevin pointed out, in his customary, overly-reasonable tone. "Nor is anyone else at camp, apart from you."

I waved my hand wildly. "You know what I mean," I grumbled. "This is impossible. They're immortal, right? So that means some of them are centuries old. Can you imagine how much training you can have over, say, three hundred years? They probably make CIA agents look like playground bullies. Most people at camp have had _three_ years of training, if that. Not to mention that they must be as tough as rusty nails from living in the outdoors."

"Who was it that was saying we'll think of something?" Kevin asked drily. "Anyway, how do you know we're the ones who have to come up the strategy?"

"Chiron told me."

"Ah," the son of Ares said flatly. His face dropped - probably he'd been hopefully hanging onto the idea that I'd gotten it wrong about our being the poor fools who had to beat the warrior nuns.

A heavy silence fell over the conversation like a smothering blanket as we contemplated our doom. I stared darkly into the lake water a few feet in front of me. My ever-cheerful mind produced the suggestion of jumping into the lake to end my misery, but I had a feeling that the naiads - who were peering up at Kevin and me with a wispy hint of interest in their eyes - would just throw me back out.

"Why don't we think it over for the afternoon?" Kevin proposed finally. "I have to get to my sword-fighting class, and you should get settled in, get your schedule and so on."

"Alright," I sighed. We parted there, and as I walked away, I tried to focus on the rather grim consolation that if we did fail, it probably wouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

* * *

Following Kevin's advice, I headed down to the Hermes cabin, claimed a bed for myself and got my schedule from Anna. Upon inspecting it, I found that I didn't have a training session for another twenty minutes, so I decided to go find Nico.

He wasn't in any of the hiding-places which I knew about (the back of the arts and crafts building, the tree-enclosed corner at the edge of the woods, and that place near the weapons shed where no-one ever thought to look), so I resorted to going to the Hades cabin.

It was a pretty intimidating building, its imposing nature only a little lessened by familiarity. All the cabins had a powerful aura, but the Hades cabin's aura was stronger than most. The obsidian rock from which it was built had its own eerie, greenish-grey glow, and wreaths of misty darkness wrapped about corners of the cabin like incorporeal snakes. This time, I found the building more gut-chilling than usual, for the obsidian walls forcibly reminded me of Wilson's memory stone.

I shuddered as I remembered what he'd shown me. How many times, I wondered, did the son of Erebus re-live that memory, constantly forcing himself into a dark echo of an uncertain past?

With these cheerful ideas in my mind, I knocked on the door of the Hades cabin. Unsurprisingly, there was no response - even if Nico _was_ there, he wasn't one to politely answer the door. Hell, it wasn't completely impossible for him to be asleep. Where most people had normal body clocks, children of the Underworld had leaky hourglasses.

After a pause just long enough to be considered in-keeping with good manners, I opened the door.

The inside was as discouraging as the outside, though in a different way. The cabin had three windows, all of which were firmly closed and curtained (and one of them was so dirty, from the outside it looked like part of the wall). It was a good deal smaller than the Hermes cabin, with only six beds - not one of which was occupied. It was not as insanely chaotic and untidy as my cabin, but it was pretty darn close. The only functional overhead light intermittently fizzled on and off, casting an uncomplimentary yellow glow over the room. It was not, to its credit, particularly smelly, but there was an almost palpable sense of grouchiness in the air, as though the occupant of the cabin had managed to infuse the place with the irritable air that attended him everywhere.

I gingerly stepped further into the room, being cautious, lest the paranoid son of Hades have planted deathly, skeleton-summoning snares. The demigod himself was not in sight. I waited a moment, in case he was lurking in a shadow, but I heard not a sound and sensed not a soul. Nico, it seemed, was simply not at camp.

I sighed, and tried not to feel too disappointed. If I was honest, I had been hoping that he'd help Kevin and I to scramble a strategy together, so it was a little frustrating that he wasn't there to bail us out.

I left the cabin, carefully closing the door behind me. Deciding not to worry about the capture-the-flag game until later, I headed for the lake to have my first lesson of the summer: canoeing.

Percy Jackson was a good friend of Nico's, as well as being his cousin on the godly side. I'd gotten to know him a little over the last year. My initial impression of him - which had comprised entirely of disbelief at the idea he was a valiant and outstanding hero who had saved the world from the evil Titan Kronos - had not been lessened over time. To be honest, I was becoming increasingly convinced that there was some mistake. _This_ goofy guy, the hero of Olympus?

(I shouldn't talk, though. I was a geeky, introverted mortal who apparently had a big role to play in a coming clash between the gods and a bunch of ancient scary bad guys, which sounds even more unbelievable than the story about Percy.)

I got down to the lake a little early, and was greeted cheerfully by the son of Poseidon.

"What's up, Cyrus?" he said, giving me a manly hand-clasp. "I was hoping I'd see you here! You definitely need the training."

"Percy, you think everyone needs training," I said. "But it's good to see you! How's Annabeth?"

"She's good, she's good," Percy nodded, suddenly looking a little alarmed, like a rabbit in the headlights. I didn't ask what was wrong - I really wasn't in the mood for hearing about other peoples' woes.

"Are you still teaching sword-fighting?" I asked hopefully. Percy was a much better teacher than Clarisse - he didn't threaten to beat me up if I didn't do something right, for one. Those few sessions I'd had with Clarisse last summer were seared indelibly into my mind, and that sword-fight in front of camp was a traumatic experience from which I would never recover.

"I am!" he nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, it should be good. Hopefully you'll make a little progress this summer."

I winced a little. My sword-fighting was still pretty bad - once the sword was in my hand, I tended less towards a structured system and more towards wildly hacking at anything that moved. It wasn't exactly the most efficient of fighting styles, though for some reason I was a little better when I was using a knife.

"Well, as long as I don't have to save the world in a sword-fight," I murmured.

By now, the rest of the canoeing class had arrived. The session kicked off, and so my summer training began.

It took less than five minutes for me to end up drenched and embarrassed.

* * *

Chiron officially announced the capture-the-flag game at dinner.

I had been harbouring a vague hope that Chiron would change his mind about the game - perhaps the Hunters wouldn't be able to stay for long enough to hold it, or maybe the fact that Mr. D was not present - strangely, he was nowhere to be seen at camp - would be grounds to delay the match. The universe is not so kind to me, though, and as the campers finished dinner, the centaur rose to his feet.

"As you have all no doubt noticed, the Hunters are staying at camp for a few days," he began. "I would like to welcome them, and express my hope that they will enjoy their stay."

He bowed his head towards the Hunters, who were, of course, at the normally-vacant Artemis table. They bowed their heads in reply. I eyed them carefully. They were quite an insular group, with most of them not talking to the campers, instead enjoying one another's company. It was a little difficult for me to look at them for too long, as their auras became blinding pretty fast, but one thing that struck me about them was the sheer confidence in their bearing.

Formalities completed, Chiron continued.

"As is traditional," he said, "we will hold a friendly," the centaur paused uncertainly for a brief moment, just long enough to show that previous games had been _anything_ but friendly, "game of capture-the-flag. This will take place tomorrow night, after dinner. Both campers and Hunters should use tomorrow to prepare. Kevin Andrews and Cyrus Wright are chief strategists and will prepare the plan for the camp's team."

I heard more than one groan at this announcement. Chiron tactfully ignored the dissent, and sat down.

I exchanged mournful glances with Kevin, who was at the Ares table. Then, my gaze drifted over to the Athena table, and I accidentally met Zack Walker's eyes. I didn't look away right away, but waited to see how he'd react. As I expected, a sneer began to form on his lip, and his eyebrows raised in contempt.

I looked away again before I started punching things.

After everyone else had left the pavilion, Kevin and I held a council of war at the Hermes table.

"So, have you ever faced the Hunters before?" I asked, as Kevin sat down alongside me with an air of forlorn resignation.

"No," he replied, rubbing his eyes, as he always did before he started planning, "though I've heard stories. In one game, two children of the Big Three together - Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace - weren't even enough to beat them."

"And what is it about them?" I asked exasperatedly. "What do they have that makes them so much better?"

Kevin dug into one of the deep pockets of his many-pocketed army trousers. He withdrew a thick, compact notebook, and quickly flicked to a page of carefully-written notes.

"It seems like the environment plays a key role," he said thoughtfully. "They are _hunters_, after all, which means that they are very skilled in the forest, while almost all the campers are about as skilled as kangaroos."

I snorted as I imagined the demigods being magically turned into kangaroos. There were certainly some who would benefit from such a transformation.

"Another important factor is that they are in fights a lot more than us campers," Kevin went on, turning over a page. "Because they live out in the wild, they come upon a lot more monsters. Many campers, on the other hand, have never fought a monster, particularly any of those younger than thirteen or fourteen."

"Why's that?" I asked, curious.

"During the two big wars, huge numbers of monsters were killed, and they take a long time to reform," he answered. "Most of the monsters who normally hunt for half-bloods in the city were sent to Tartarus, which means that far fewer half-bloods have had to deal with attacks."

I nodded. What Kevin was saying sounded vaguely familiar - a memory of Chiron mentioning something about it rustled in a corner of my mind.

"Maybe if we could get the Hunters out into one of the more open areas of the forest," Kevin mused. "That would take away one of the main advantages."

"But they'd be expecting that," I pointed out. "They probably split up into small groups to avoid large numbers being caught in the open."

"Excellent point, Cyrus!" a cool voice said behind us suddenly, making me jump.

"Hi, Zack," Kevin said dully, not turning, as I whirled around with the speed of a ninja.

(Or the speed of a scaredy-cat. Whichever you prefer.)

Sure enough, the son of Athena had come back to the pavilion and was now standing behind us, wearing the usual contemptuous expression with which he always greeted our attempts at strategising.

"I suppose you've come to tell us that we suck and we're going to fail, Zack," I said flatly, turning my back to him. "Don't worry, I've been telling myself that all day."

"No," Zack said in an unauthentically cheerful tone, as he walked around to sit down across from us. "I came to help."

"This may come as a shock, Zack, but insulting people doesn't generally help them," I said caustically.

He sighed annoyingly, and paused annoyingly, before saying annoyingly, "Look, I know we dislike each other, but I don't want camp to lose this match, so I really do want to help."

I examined him for a moment. He had grown an inch or so in the past year, which meant that he was still considerably taller than me. This did not, as you can imagine, lessen his affected superiority. His skin was a little less pale and his frame had broadened. His grey gaze was as cold as ever, but his greyish-blue aura did not have the aggressive tremble which it usually took on when Zack spoke to me. I could only conclude that, much to my annoyance, he was actually telling the truth.

I met Kevin's eyes, and gave him a nod. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, but I shrugged just a little as if to say, what harm can it do?

"Okay," the son of Ares said to the son of Athena. "Have any ideas?"

Zack rested his chin on his hand and gazed at the table for a moment, deep in thought.

"We need to avoid any direct confrontation with the Hunters," he said finally, his tone of contempt easing away as he focussed on the problem at hand. "They're too formidable for us to take down in open battle. Even one-on-one fights are a bad idea."

"But then how do we stop them from getting to the flag?" Kevin interjected.

"That's the issue," Zack agreed. "The game has two principal problems: how to get the opponent's flag, and how to stop the opponent getting our own flag."

We all fell silent as we considered the challenge. For once, I sorely felt my inexperience. I'd never even taken part in a capture-the-flag match, so I had only a general idea of what was involved. Furthermore, I had no real experience of combat, so any advice I could contribute was purely theoretical.

Still, being unacquainted with something can make it easier to think outside of the box.

"What if we put the flag in a really obscure place?" I suggested. "Like in a tree in a far corner of the forest?"

Kevin shook his head. "It's a rule that the flag has to be openly displayed," he said.

"Oh."

After another minute's thought, I proposed, "What if we leave almost all the team at the flag to defend it, and send one or two of our stealthiest half-bloods to get the Hunters' flag?"

"Tried that, I believe," Zack said. "Annabeth told me that they did that a few years ago, but the Hunters took down the two runners almost immediately. After a while the defense team got bored, and most of them went off to see what had happened. In a moment, a Hunter slipped past them."

"Great," I muttered, burying my face in my hands. "This is impossible. What do we have to do, kill them?"

There was another long pause. Then, I sensed a sudden change of mood. I looked up, and saw that Kevin had gained that air of satisfaction which always came over him when he had a good idea.

"We can't kill them," Kevin said cheerfully. "But we can trick them."

Zack's gaze focussed on him. "How?"

"We have to openly display the flag, right?" he said, leaning forwards eagerly. "But no-one ever said _which_ flag."

Zack and I stared at him blankly at him for a moment, before comprehension began to blossom.

"You mean…" Zack said slowly.

"We have two flags," Kevin said excitedly. "Between the Athena people and the Hecate cabin, we can make one that looks identical to the real thing, right? And then we put that up in the usual spot, at Zeus' Fist. We have the other flag nearby, but we get the Hecate guys to veil it so the Hunters won't see it."

"And then the Hunters will take a dummy flag?" I said.

"Yes," the son of Ares nodded. "They won't realise it's the wrong one until they get back to their side of the river. By then, it'll be too late, because one of our guys will have made it to _their_ flag."

"Meaning the Hunters won't have time to go back to Zeus' Fist to find our real flag," Zack finished. "That's a great idea, Kevin. I'm impressed."

"Isn't this kind of bending the rules, though?" I said uncertainly.

Zack laughed. "Chiron is the one in charge, and I don't think he'll care. He's been hoping for camp to win for decades."

We sat there for another while, fleshing out our hopefully winning plan. As we discussed it, I began to be a little suspicious of Zack. He was being very emphatic in terms of talking about "we" and "us" and "our plan". I could understand him being eager to beat the Hunters - after all, one of the reasons he disliked me was that he saw me as a blight on the honour of camp - but this focus on "working together" and "being a team" was very far from the supercilious son of Athena who I knew.

Finally, after considering his strange emphasis on camaraderie for ten minutes or more, it hit me.

"You don't really care _this_ much about camp winning, do you?" I said, as the conversation began to wind down. "You're just interested in getting the glory of winning, and getting to take the credit for it."

Zack's gaze turned icy-cold, and he glared at me with an anger that did nothing except confirm my suspicions.

"So?" he said coldly. "Maybe so, mortal. But then you wouldn't care about glory, would you? After all, you will _never_ be a hero."

He stood up slowly. I thought he was going to say something else, but instead he just turned and stalked away.

I looked at Kevin, expecting him to be pleased that I'd outed Zack, but to my surprise, the son of Ares just looked pained.

"Why did you have to say that, Cyrus?" he said quietly, putting his head in his hands.

'What?" I said, confused. "He's obviously just trying to take the credit. That's not fair! I was right to point it out!"

"I don't know…" Kevin murmured, rubbing his brow. "He was helping, and for once he wasn't fighting with us. Maybe it would have been better just to let him take the credit."

I stared. I knew Kevin didn't like confrontation, but this made no sense to me.

"How could I leave it?" I asked. "If I see something, I have to say it."

"Maybe sometimes you're better off not saying it," he replied, meeting my eyes with a disappointed gaze. "Maybe sometimes it's better to be tactful, to let things slide."

"Are you saying I'm not tactful?"

"Yes," Kevin said immediately. "To be honest, you're the least tactful person I know."

He paused, looking at his notes again, before shrugging.

"Let's leave it at that, I guess," he muttered, rising.

Kevin didn't mention his observations again as we walked back to the cabins, but I didn't stop thinking about them, even when I was falling asleep.


	4. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Four**

* * *

_"Why are you in charge anyway? What do you know about organising something like this?" _[Fletcher said]

_"I have faith," Tanith said._

_"As do I," Ghastly said._

_Valkyrie smiled at them gratefully. "So you think the plan will work?"_

_"God, no," said Ghastly._

_"Sorry, Val," said Tanith._

–Derek Landy, 'Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days'

* * *

I was pretty busy the next day with preparing and training for capture-the-flag, so I didn't get another chance to think about what Kevin had said to me. I did, however, get a moment in between classes to tell him about Chiron's secretive behaviour, which I'd forgotten about amidst the worry of coming up with a strategy.

"That _is_ weird," Kevin said meditatively. "He's up to something that he knows you wouldn't like."

"What makes you say that?" I said, surprised.

"You're not really the type to spread gossip, so obviously he's not just hiding it from camp," Kevin pointed out. "So either he's been forbidden to tell you about it - which is a possibility, but I feel like it's not true - or he knows you'd try to stop him."

"As if _I_ could stop him," I muttered.

"No," he conceded. "But you'd certainly try."

Our break-time ended then, and we parted ways, me to have an archery class, Kevin to have a spear-throwing session.

Archery was probably the only combat skill which I was taking to without endless amounts of embarrassment. I wasn't nearly as good a shot as someone from the Apollo cabin, but I could at least hit the target with consistency - though I'd hit only one bull's eye, and that had been down to a lucky wind and a timely sneeze.

Will Solace was still the archery instructor. I didn't really talk to him outside of class - he didn't actually spend a lot of time at camp, often only coming to give a class before leaving again - but he seemed like a nice guy. Like most children of Apollo, he had quite an easy-going temperament, so I was rather surprised when he took me aside at the end of the class and told me emphatically to beat those "goddamn moon lunatics".

"I'll try," I assured him, slightly unnerved by his outburst of emotion.

"You'd better," he growled. "Those stuck-up, overbearing, cocky…"

It was only afterwards that I remembered something Nico had mentioned about Apollo and Artemis having an antagonistic relationship. It figured that that would extend to their demigodly children/followers.

I received more encouragements from different trainers throughout the day - Percy wanted me to win so that Thalia would "stop gloating like a bad villain", and Annabeth (who had that day returned to the insane task of trying to teach me Ancient Greek) muttered something about the honour and pride of camp.

Just before dinner, Jane quite literally jumped out of a shadow at me, declaring her wish to be the one to seize the Hunters' flag.

"Well," I said slowly, playing for time as I thought of a way to ensure she didn't become a liability to our plan. "I _was_ wishing Nico was here, because his thing of hiding in the shadows could come in very handy, but you seem to have come on a lot…"

I paused, as Jane stared at me eagerly. Percy, Clarisse and a daughter of Apollo named Alice Evans were the main strike team (normally people as old as Percy couldn't take part in capture-the-flag, but when you're playing an elite force like the Hunters, exceptions have to be made), but Jane could be a useful backup.

"Alright," I said finally. "But you _have_ to listen to instructions, okay?"

Unsurprisingly, Jane paid no attention to my caveat as she punched the air and gave me a hug.

"I'll make sure we win, I promise!" she declared, before speeding off in the direction of the cabins, presumably to prepare her gear for the match.

I can't say I really enjoyed dinner. All I could think of was how Kevin and I would be hated by everyone if we lost. We'd prepared the dummy flag with great secrecy, making sure that not a hint of its existence leaked out to the Hunters, but what if something had got through? What if the trick didn't work? The Hecate guy I'd spoken to was pretty grouchy about having to use up his invisibility stone. What if there was a mutiny? If the Hunters got even a whiff of the ruse, the plan would be ruined, and Kevin and I would be reviled by most of camp.

My only consolation was that we could always find a way to blame it all on Zack.

Anna, as ever, tried to give me some words of advice.

"Remember that camp has never beaten the Hunters before," she said, looking at me owlishly over her glass. "If you lose, it's not going to be a great surprise."

"I'm not sure how that's supposed to make me feel better…" I muttered.

"Look at it this way," the daughter of Hermes replied, "if people are down on you for losing, ask them if they could have done any better."

That, I reflected, was a fair point.

As dinnertime drew to a close, and I tried miserably to eat a few more bites of food, I wondered why Chiron had even given us the job of strategising. Did he actually want the Hunters to win? Or did he really have that much faith in us?

One thing was for sure - it must truly take the patience of a eons-old being to maintain faith in me.

Finally, after what seemed like an eon of agonising thoughts, the centaur rose to his feet.

"The match will begin in just under half an hour," he declared. "I would advise you all to finish preparations and to be at the arena in time to join your team."

Those who were members of the team quickly finished up and left. Not wanting to get into conversation with them just yet, I waited till they had all streamed away before following. The Hermes kids wished me luck, and Anna rose to follow me, as she was part of the defense squad.

"So what do you think of the plan?" I asked her nervously, as we headed for the arena.

Her brown, elfin eyes narrowed for a moment in thought, before she replied, "I'm not a great strategist, but I think it will work. If we make sure that secrecy is maintained, it could work… I don't really know, though. I have a good feeling about it, if that helps…."

I nodded noncommittally. Good feelings were nice and all, but they didn't make a whit of difference once we were out in the forest facing the merciless Hunters.

When we reached the arena, Kevin was inspecting the strike squad. Though he was a highly pacifistic son of Ares, he still had a very thorough knowledge of military mechanics and equipment - if anything, he knew more than any other Ares camper, as he spend a lot more time studying such details. His inspection was, as a result, entirely comprehensive, picking up on small aspects of the half-bloods' gear that seemed irrelevant, but which could play a big role in combat.

We weren't just playing one trick on the Hunters - we had two. Defence of the flag was less of an issue because of the decoy, meaning that we had more troops to utilize in different areas. So, we actually had two attack squads, but one of these was disguised as a standard border patrol, so as to (hopefully) catch the Hunters unawares. For some reason, Kevin had insisted that I be part of this team. God knew it wasn't because of my battle skills, so I could only assume that it was down to my problem-solving abilities.

I strapped on the lightest armour I could find (even frequent training had not made me able to run whilst wearing large, heavy plates of bronze), took a dagger, bow and arrow, and joined the ranks of the "secondary defense squad".

Annabeth and Percy, both decked out in full regalia, sidled over to me as I watched the Hunters, who were ranged on the opposite side of the arena, complete their own arrangements with clinical, intimidating efficiency.

"Best of luck, Seer!" Percy said happily.

("Seer" was Percy's idea of a clever nickname. This came, after all, from the man who occasionally called his daughter-of-Athena girlfriend _Wise Girl_.)

"Thanks, Percy," I nodded slowly. I was trying not to move too quickly because I was starting to feel vaguely nauseous.

"It feels good to be out fighting again!" the son of Poseidon declared enthusiastically. I glanced at Annabeth, who was wearing a faintly bemused expression.

"What do you think of the plan?" I asked her, feeling both afraid of what she'd say and anxious to know what she thought.

"I think it's good," she said, much to my relief. "The key will be to safely secure the flag before the Hunters catch on to the trick."

"Well, that's the job for you guys," I said.

Just then, Chiron galloped into the arena. He surveyed us for a moment, his doubtful expression demonstrating his distinct lack of faith in our abilities, before lifting a large conch shell to his lips and blowing upon it.

"Heroes!" the centaur cried out. "In a moment, you shall enter the forest and begin the game. Remember, there is to be no maiming or deliberate injuring, and fair play must be observed at all times."

He paused. The arena was almost completely silent now, as all of our team had finished preparing and were now separated into the three main squads. Likewise, on the other side of the arena, the Hunters were grouped together in tight rows, though they looked a lot more militaristic than our ragtag group. When I looked at our assortment, which included overly-aggressive children of Ares, scientifically-armoured children of Athena, cosmetically-fascinated children of Aphrodite, cumbersome children of Hephaestus and hopelessly uninterested children of Hermes, I felt like I was at some kind of unprofessional comic book convention.

"Now, let the game begin!"

The Hunters took off marching right away, while our team was a little slower. In a moment, though, we were all hurrying towards the forest.

I glanced around me. Percy and Annabeth had fallen in with the rest of the main strike team, and I was marching amongst the "border patrol". I barely knew any of them, and I really wasn't in the mood for conversation, so I kept my head down.

Now that we were moving, my nausea had begun to fade, but I still felt deeply uneasy. I started to wonder if it was just because of the game, or if it was something else - a sense that something bad was coming.

Then again, our plan collapsing would be pretty bad.

We entered the forest a couple of minutes after the Hunters, heading for the large clump of rocks and trees that was supposed to look like the fist of a god, but which actually just looked like a large clump of rocks and trees.

It was on the far side of the forest, and as we made our way to it, we passed a number of important tactical points. Various parts of the team split off at these places, taking up their assigned positions. We were nearly at the stream when the main strike team slipped away - there was no point in them coming all the way to base. When we reached the river, a number of demigods stopped and took up defensive positions - they were the first (and, technically, last) line of protection from the onslaught of moon-coated fury.

Halfway towards Zeus' Large Clump of Rocks And Trees, our secondary defense team halted at a dense thicket, with a few of the more zealous half-bloods actually climbing up into the trees. Finally, by the time we reached base, we were down to me, Kevin, a daughter of Ares, two Demeter kids and a daughter of Hecate.

I paused, standing to one side with Olivia, the daughter of Hecate, as Kevin directed the others to their positions and instructed them on how to manage any incoming raiders.

Olivia Hartnell was sixteen, two years older than me. Apparently she was the most skilled magician of her cabin, though she didn't look especially imposing. Her build was slight, her face unremarkable but somehow engaging, her dark hair light and thin, giving her a slightly ethereal appearance - but her sharp green eyes and intense emerald aura made her stand out.

"Have you ever fought the Hunters before?" I asked her, as I watched Kevin hand out orders.

"Just once," she said, gazing penetratingly at the trees that rimmed our clearing. "In my first year at camp. All I remember is getting tripped over by a Hunter when I tried to defend the flag."

Kevin finished, and waved at us to follow him. We began climbing up Zeus' Large Clump of Rocks and Trees, heading for the top.

"Did you know," Olivia said, as we struggled along, "that an entrance to Daedalus' Labyrinth used to be right here?"

"Really?" I said, looking at her in alarm. "What happened to it?"

"When Nico di Angelo set Daedalus' spirit free, the Labyrinth completely collapsed."

I frowned. Now _there_ was a story I'd never heard from Nico.

Suddenly, as we reached the top, I remembered Jane.

"Where on earth is Jane?" I said abruptly.

"Huh?" Kevin said blankly, glancing over his shoulder at me as he reached under his breastplate to take out our fake flag.

"I told her earlier she could help, but I haven't seen her," I explained, fiddling with my dagger's handle. "She must be around…"

"Oh," he shrugged. He unfurled the flag - which looked just like the real one - and tied it to the pole that was embedded in the centre of the highest rock in the clump.

"Do you have to do anything else with it?" he asked Olivia.

"Just one thing," she murmured. She stepped past him, grasping a handful of the flag. A ripple of energy flowed through her aura, and a wave of green rippled down her arm and into the flag, which stiffened slightly. I frowned - for some reason, something about what she was doing looked oddly familiar.

"That's it," Olivia said, dropping her arm to her side. "That will help to shield the enchantments on the flag."

"Remind me again why we had to enchant this flag?" I asked, as I turned to go down the other side of Zeus' Clump.

"The real flag is always charmed," Olivia said, her voice quiet but clear. "The Hunters might sense something is wrong if they only find a normal, charmless flag."

"Great," Kevin said, glancing down at our defenders. "Let's go put up the real flag!"

We edged down the rocks until we reached a nice, out-of-the-way alcove which could be easily spotted, but only if you were approaching Zeus' Clump from the north - and the Hunters would be coming from the south.

From my quiver of arrows, I produced a length of wood about the size of a curtain pole. I bent down, feeling with one hand for a small gap in the rock. When I found one, I slotted the pole into it. Kevin dug out the real flag and tied it on.

"Okay," Kevin said, standing back - not that he could stand back very far on our small ledge of rough rock. "Go ahead, sorceress."

Olivia laughed a little as she withdrew a grey stone from her pocket. Invisibility stones were, apparently, hard to come by, which was why the Hecate counsellor had been so reluctant to surrender his. We'd gotten our hands on it only by using a potent mixture of blackmail and chore reassignment. Olivia rested it in her palm, drawing in a deep breath before activating it with a whispered word of power. She placed it at the foot of the pole, which promptly became almost invisible - if you really focussed, you could just about make it out, but otherwise it was utterly imperceptible.

"Excellent!" Kevin said enthusiastically, clapping his hands together. "I really can't see this going wrong."

I winced.

We made our way back down to ground level, and found Jane pacing around frantically at the base of Zeus' Clump.

"There you are!" she cried, on seeing me. "I was starting to think you'd been put on border patrol!"

Olivia took her place with the other guards, who were already starting to look bored, while Kevin and I walked with Jane to the edge of the clearing.

"We're going to try to get the flag," I told her, as Kevin meticulously checked his gear for the millionth time. "The flag doesn't need as much protection now, so we're going to take a stab at theirs."

"Hopefully we'll take the Hunters by surprise," the son of Ares added, unsheathing his sword to inspect it.

"Sure!" Jane said, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. "But… we're not the main people getting the flag, right?"

"No," I said quickly.

"No," Kevin said slowly, meeting her eyes and grinning. "But that doesn't mean we have to let them get the glory!"

After surveying the defenses one more time, the three of us set off into the woods, with Kevin leading the way.

"How do we know where the Hunters have the flag?" I said, as quietly as possible, in case one of our opponents was lurking nearby.

"We can't know exactly where," Kevin admitted, talking a little louder. "But there's a clearing over the other side of the river. Some of the older campers told me that the Hunters usually set up there."

We tried to make our way along as quietly as possible, though that wasn't wholly successful. Kevin was reasonably good at moving silently, and Jane, who was walking behind him, was as stealthy as a cat. I, however, taking up the rear of our little procession, seemed to be stepping on every dead, brittle, snappable branch in the forest.

Every couple of minutes, Kevin made us stop as he listened out for passing Hunters. It occurred to me on one of these occasions, as we crouched in the undergrowth like alarmed rabbits, that the name "Hunter" was very appropriate - I really felt like I was being hunted by those maidens of Artemis.

"What happens if they find us?" I asked nervously, after another false alarm.

"Oh, they'll disarm us, tie us up maybe, probably knock us out too," Kevin said, his tone sarcastically cheerful.

"Sounds fun," Jane muttered, as she hopped over a fallen tree bough, which I promptly stumbled over.

Finally, we reached the stream that divided the forest into two halves of a chessboard. Kevin bade us be still with a gesture just as we came to the edge of our half of the forest. The two of us halted in the shelter of the tree line while he edged out into the open.

"What's he doing?" Jane whispered, glancing over her shoulder at me.

"Probably checking for Hunters," I replied. "Hopefully there aren't any near…"

Luckily for us, this area was clear. Kevin waved at us to follow as he waded through the stream.

My nerves grew a good deal tighter as we slipped into the other side of the forest. Here, it seemed far more likely that we'd bump into a Hunter. I whispered this to Kevin, who shook his head.

"The Hunters are far more offensively orientated than that," he said. "Most of them will have gone over to get the flag. The rest will be near the base camp."

A rustle in a nearby tree almost made me jump _up_ a tree, but it was only a bird.

"And how will we get past the defenders?" Jane asked, as we crept along.

"We don't get past them," Kevin said grimly, tightening his grip on his sword, which he had unsheathed as he'd crossed the stream. "We get _through_ them."

We'd been working our methodical way through the Hunters' area of forest for about five minutes when we heard an a sharp shriek of anger ring out across the woods.

"What the hell was that?" Jane whisper-shouted, stopping and turning to look back towards the stream.

I met Kevin's eyes, and saw from his dark expression that we were both thinking the same thing: the Hunters, far quicker than us, had already made it to Zeus' Clump of Trees, and they'd just reached the stream on their way back.

That shriek was the sound of someone discovering our ruse.

"We need to move," Kevin said urgently. He took off running, no longer trying to be stealthy, and Jane and I followed, trying not to trip over. Making noise was now irrelevant - we had to get the flag before the Hunters had time to find ours.

We bounded through the woods, pausing only to unsnag our clothes from awkwardly-positioned trees. Finally, up ahead, it began to grow lighter as we approached a clearing.

Suddenly, about ten metres from the edge of that clearing, Kevin stopped.

"What now?" Jane hissed as she stumbled to a halt next to him.

He raised a finger to his lips, and pointed with his other hand at the Hunter standing only five metres away from us.

She had her back turned, and was standing completely still, but it was surely any second before she heard us. Though she was short in stature, her aura was blinding, like those of all the other Hunters, and her bearing expressed great confidence.

The really big katana in her left hand didn't exactly help, either.

The Hunter started to turn. In a flash, Jane grabbed my hand and Kevin's shoulder. A ripple of energy pulsed out from her aura as the Hunter peered towards us. I held my breath, waiting for discovery, but the silver-clad girl only shrugged before turning and walking away.

"Phew," Jane murmured, once the Hunter had vanished into the clearing. "Good thing I practiced shadow-concealment, no?"

Kevin and I fervently nodded our agreement. With relief buoying us up, we crept on.

We reached the edge of the clearing without further incident, and managed to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond the tree line. The flag was placed at the centre of an area of open ground and five Hunters, including the one who'd nearly discovered us, stood in a wide circle around it. There was less than twenty feet between us and them, and there was not a single rock or tree to hide behind.

I turned to Kevin. "What do we do?" I asked, appealing to his strategic nature.

(I could have thought of a solution - but only given twenty minutes, a sketchbook, two Sharpies and a glass of sparkling water. Quick-thinking military man, I was not.)

His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the situation. I shifted from foot to foot, trying to quell my nerves, and Jane chewed her nails worriedly,

"Can you shadow-travel over to the flag?" Kevin asked Jane, after a long pause.

"I think so," she said, eyeing it. "It's in shadow from the taller trees, so yeah, I can. But how will I get back out with it?"

"Let Cyrus and me worry about that," he replied confidently. "You get in and get out with the flag. Don't get caught up in the fight, got it?"

"Got it," Jane nodded.

"Cyrus," the son of Ares said to me, "you and I are going to engage the enemy."

I blanched.

"Don't worry," he laughed, patting me on the shoulder. "We won't have to hang around for long."

Kevin paused just long enough to take breath, then said to both of us, "Ready? Go."

Kevin and I took off, tensing for combat as we ran towards the Hunters, who immediately reacted and came surging towards us. In my periphery vision, I saw Jane vanishing and reappearing next to the flag. Next second, I was ducking as a dark-haired Hunter tried to bludgeon me unconscious with her sword. I parried her attack and swung wildly with my knife to drive her back a step. Beside me, Kevin was dealing with three Hunters at once. I ducked another attack, and caught a glimpse of Jane dodging the fifth guard. The daughter of Nyx had the flag in her hands, but couldn't shake the Hunter, who had grabbed her arm and wasn't letting go.

The Hunter attacking me nearly disarmed me, and I staggered back. As she came lunging in, I heard a battle cry from behind us. Suddenly, Percy was there, knocking Hunters to the ground left and right. Alice Evans came in from an angle and took down the Hunter facing me with a fast, accurate blow of her sword. Annabeth sped past, heading for the fifth guard. In a second, Jane was free, and she shadow-travelled out of the melee, back within the tree line.

"Let's go!" she yelled. Our team beat a hasty retreat, escaping before the Hunters could regain their senses. We ran into the forest, stealthiness completely thrown to the winds. Jane was in the lead, clutching the flag tightly as we hurtled through the trees. A mere moment passed before we heard the sounds of pursuit, but we had a wide start on them. As we neared the stream, I heard shouts from the other side, and a chill went through me - what if the Hunters had already made it to our flag?

We sped up, breaking out into the open. Sure enough, a team of Hunters were bounding through our forest, being chased desperately by our defenders - the enemy had the flag.

"Come on!" I cried out, waving my dagger madly. "We can do this!"

The Hunters were fast - really fast - but they were much further away from the stream. The Hunters behind us were gaining too, but we'd gotten too big of a start on them. Jane made it into the stream just as Thalia Grace, the Hunter with our flag, emerged from the tree line.

Then, it happened.

The shadows around the edges of the trees stirred, and a dull wind rustled the branches, shaking leaves from the boughs. The air grew colder, and suddenly the shadows were dragged together, all moving across the clearing to converge in the stream right in front of Jane, who was only a few steps from our side of the forest - a few steps from victory.

In the blink of an eye, the darkness coalesced into a shape, a shape which promptly resolved itself into a living person.

"I have an urgent message for Chiron from Lord Hades," Nico di Angelo shouted, just before he collapsed, face-first, into the rushing stream water.


	5. Chapter Five

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

* * *

_"Ah, Captain Jenkins! This is your lucky day!"_

_The captain looked up from the rope he was coiling. No one likes being told it's their lucky day. That sort of thing does not bode well. When someone tells you it's your lucky day, something bad is about to happen._

–Terry Pratchett, 'Jingo'

* * *

Silence spread through the surrounding demigods and Hunters, emanating out in swift waves from the spot in the stream where the son of Hades lay motionless. His appearance by itself was not that shocking, but the abruptness of it seemed to have rendered everyone completely stunned.

And perhaps it was just me, but there was something foreboding in the air - not in Nico's words or actions (though suddenly emerging from the shadows and collapsing into a river isn't exactly what you'd call reassuring behaviour), but in something indistinct, something deep in my bones, as though the son of Hades had brought with him a dark spirit.

That sounds ridiculous, of course, but looking back now, I see that there was a lot of truth in that sense of foreboding: a dark spirit hadn't entered the camp, but a series of events had begun which would prove more damaging than any ethereal being.

The initial shock began to wear off, and Jane bent down to examine Nico. He had become her mentor at camp, for there was no other shadow-demigod left there - not after Jake Wilson's betrayal - and they had a good relationship, albeit one largely characterised by sarcasm contests. Concern was writ large in the daughter of Nyx's face as she checked Nico's vitals, but it began to ebb away as she saw that he was neither injured nor dead.

She turned to the nearest Hunter - Thalia Grace. The dark-haired, blue-eyed daughter of Zeus was standing on the stream bank, shifting from foot to foot uneasily. Nico was her cousin too, though she wasn't as close to him as Percy. The Hunters behind her weren't anywhere near as worried, instead just looking impatient. They stayed put, however, respecting the lieutenant's unspoken orders.

"I think we should call this game a draw," Jane said to Thalia, once she'd fully satisfied herself that Nico was basically fine. "We can't really continue with it now, right?"

Thalia nodded. I felt a little triumphant - we hadn't actually won the game, but we'd made sure that the Hunters hadn't won.

"I'll get Chiron," Jane went on, starting to stand up, but vanishing into the darkness before she fully straightened. Thalia bent down to inspect Nico herself, and the Hunters all began to group together in a huddle on one side of the stream. Percy and Annabeth walked past me, heading to Nico and Thalia, while Kevin moved to stand next to me.

"Well, this sucks," he muttered.

"Yeah, hopefully he's alright," I replied naively.

"No!" Kevin said grumpily. "I mean that it sucks because it's a draw! We were so close to finally winning!"

"At least the Hunters didn't win…" I said in a consolatory tone.

"Big deal," Kevin groaned, rubbing his forehead. "After all that work…"

Jane reemerged from the shadows, now with Chiron by her side. She staggered, exhaustion from her power usage setting in, but she managed to stay upright, leaning on Chiron as they moved over to Nico. The centaur bent down to examine the prone demigod, the others quickly sidling to one side.

After a moment of inspection, he rose.

"This capture-the-flag game is to end in a draw," Chiron declared. "More important matters have arisen, and they must be dealt with. All campers and Hunters must now return to camp."

Large numbers of the demigods, and almost all of the Hunters, exchanged irritated mutters and angry mumbles as they began to amble off into the forest.

"You coming?" Kevin asked me as he turned away glumly.

"No," I shook my head. "I want to see how Nico is. I'll catch up with you later."

The son of Ares nodded, and disappeared into the trees.

I approached the knot of people surrounding the son of Hades. They'd pulled him from the river and were now preparing to load him onto Chiron's back. It struck me, as I watched, how many people were there to help - Percy, Annabeth, Jane, Chiron, Thalia, and even the quiet, brown-haired girl named Alice Evans. For someone who called himself a social outcast, Nico had a lot of friends.

"Is he alright?" I asked Alice, who was standing at the edge of the rescue party.

"Yes," she said, relief clear in her voice. "He seems fine. Something's up, though…"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure," the daughter of Apollo said softly, her gaze distant as she looked at Nico. "I have a bad feeling."

"A sense of foreboding?" I suggested.

"That's it," she replied.

I looked at her carefully. Most children of Apollo had, as I mentioned earlier, a very vibrant aura - as you'd expect for children of the sun god. Alice Evans, however, was a little different. Hers was made up of darker golds and browns, and it was much more restless - it swayed about her shoulders and upper body, like a halo of brown searchlights. She had the build of Apollo kids - lean, tall and strong - but there was something more subdued in her bearing. Her eyes were not as blindingly blue as her siblings', and her skin was a little paler. She was a couple inches taller and a few years older than me, but there was an intelligence in her gaze that was older still.

Alice met my eyes suddenly, and started, as though surprised.

"What's wrong?" I asked, giving her a blank look.

"Oh, nothing," Alice replied, airily and unconvincingly, looking away.

I shrugged, turning back to Nico, who was now slumped across Chiron's back. The demigod stirred, muttering something, before settling back down. He was pale, but not much paler than usual, and none of his clothes were bloodstained, which I think is always a good sign.

"I should get back to my Hunters," Thalia was saying to Chiron. "Let me know if there's something I should know."

"I will," Chiron assured her. She took off, also heading towards camp.

"I should get him to the Big House quickly, so I can revive him," the centaur told the rest of us. "You can follow me, in your own time."

"Alright," Percy said anxiously. He seemed to be the concerned-friend-in-chief, with Annabeth coming in at a close second.

Chiron turned and galloped off through the trees. I was forcibly reminded of a scene from 'Harry Potter', and I wondered idly if Chiron would take offense to being called Firenze.

Percy started walking, Annabeth at his side, both of them setting a quick pace through the woods. Jane and I hurried to keep up, while Alice walked a few steps behind.

"Any idea what's going on?" I asked Jane, as we once more went under the canopy of the trees.

"Not a clue," she said, shrugging and ducking under a malignant branch at the same time. "I don't know a lot about Olympian affairs, but I don't think it's very common for Hades to suddenly send Chiron a message through his son. Why couldn't he just IM him?"

I frowned. That made a lot of sense. Something was, to use a pedantically obvious term, going on.

We didn't talk much for the rest of the walk back to camp - Jane and I were absorbed in our own thoughts, Percy and Annabeth were talking quietly with each other, and Alice was entirely silent. Usually I prefer quiet, but perhaps on this occasion it wasn't the best thing for me - by the time we'd left the forest, I'd constructed seven possible scenarios to explain Nico's sudden appearance, all of which assumed that his message was heralding the beginning of the apocalypse.

(I have a morbidly over-active imagination.)

When we finally reentered the main grounds of camp, it was mostly deserted. The Hunters, it seemed, had all gone straight for their cabin - presumably to stew over the infuriating result of the game. The sun was almost fully set, so only a few campers were still roaming around.

We filed onto the porch of the Big House with an air of systematic glumness. Chiron heard us arriving, it seemed, for just then the front door opened and his head popped out.

"Nico's resting now," he informed us, though his gaze rested mainly on Percy. "I'll call you when he wakes."

"Alright," Percy replied in a quiet tone, as the centaur slipped back inside.

Almost all of us stumbled into seats, weary from the last couple of hours. Percy, though, was too anxious to stay still, and began to pace around the porch. For some reason, my imagination made me liken his behaviour to that of a troubled father.

"I'm sure he's fine," I tried to say in a reassuring manner. "He's Nico."

This, at least, got a laugh from the son of Poseidon.

All was silent for a few moments more, until Alice, who sat next to me on the left-hand side of the porch, spoke.

"Do you think this has something to do with Rhea?" she asked, not addressing anyone in particular.

I remembered what Jake had said about things _beginning_. Perhaps, I mused glumly, my ideas of impending apocalypses were more than just the exaggerated worries of a madman in a box.

"It seems likely," Annabeth murmured, from her seat on the other side of the porch. "There isn't, as far as we know, any other ancient being out to get the gods—"

"Well, thanks heavens for that," Jane muttered, who was sitting next to Annabeth.

"—and she _is_ still out there," Annabeth plowed on. "She hasn't done anything since stealing the Flame of Olympus, and Nico was the one who stopped her that time, so it seems likely that her next move is to take revenge on the the Underworld."

"So do you think he sent Nico to ask for help?" Percy asked her, his tone doubtful.

"Probably," she replied. "Although it _is_ very uncharacteristic of the Lord of the Dead to ask for help."

Annabeth paused, then added, "For Zeus' sake, Percy, sit down. You're not going to wake him up any faster by walking a kilometer."

Percy sighed, shaking his head. He flopped down in a seat next to the daughter of Athena, muttering, "I'm just worried, that's all."

The front door of the Big House creaked open, making us all jump.

"No need to worry, Percy," Chiron said briskly, as he stepped outside. "Nico's fine. Come on in."

The son of Poseidon was the first on his feet, following Chiron into the house. The rest of us streamed after him.

Nico was in a room just off the main corridor on the ground floor. I'd never been in here before, but then that didn't count for much, seeing as how I'd only ever been in two of the Big House's rooms.

It was a cosy bedroom, with a single bed, a fireplace and a bookcase making up most of the furniture. It was quite big, with room enough for the six of us. Five collapsible chairs were ranged on either side of the bedside, and we took our places. Annabeth, Percy and Alice sat on one side, whilst Jane and I sat on the other.

The half-blood of the moment was lying on his side on the bed, his eyes closed. He had regained some colour, relatively speaking, and his aura, which had been pretty shaken up when he'd arrived, had calmed down greatly. As we sat down, he stirred and shifted around till he was sitting up, propped against the bed's mass of pillows.

"Hi," he said weakly, glancing around at us all. He smiled when he met Percy and Annabeth's eyes, nodded at Alice and Jane, and raised his eyebrows to me.

I understood his meaning immediately. Like everyone else, he was surprised that I was at camp so early in the summer. I shrugged as discreetly as possible, trying to let him know that I'd explain later.

"Has someone died?" the son of Hades said suddenly, looking around at us with a feigned expression of worry. "Because you all look like you've seen a ghost."

We all laughed, and Jane replied, "It is _you_, Nico."

"Are you saying I'm a ghost?" he said, clutching his heart as though he had been deeply wounded.

Jane shrugged, as if to say, you tell me?

"No, I'm alright," Nico said, after a pause. "My father just got a little… carried away when he sent me up here. Sorry to interrupt the capture-the-flag. Who won?"

He directed the question to Percy, but I felt most qualified to answer it, being the second-in-command strategist who'd nearly beaten the Hunters.

"It was declared a draw," I said, putting a little sharpness in my tone for Kevin's sake. "_You_ arrived just in time to mess it up."

"_I_ messed it up?" he spluttered, sitting up straighter as he regained his energy and argumentativeness. (I'm not sure if the two were mutually exclusive.)

"Yup," I said drily, giving him a dark stare. "Another minute and we would've won."

"_Really_?" Nico exclaimed. "But what was your strategy?"

I started to answer, then paused. I didn't know Nico as well as some, but you don't have to be a psychologist to see when someone is avoiding the mythological elephant in the room.

"What's going on, Nico?" I said softly. "Why did your father send you here?"

Jane gave me an uneasy glance, and it occurred to me that I had just given another example of my utter lack of tact, but I can't say I cared. Sometimes you gotta get answers.

It didn't seem to bother Nico, at any rate. He just laughed.

"You always get to the point, Cyrus," he said. He glanced over at Chiron, who was standing in the doorway, and asked him, "Will I tell them, or you?"

"You tell them," Chiron answered. He muttered something else which I didn't quite hear, though it sounded like, "It'll just sound like a lecture from me."

"Alright!" Nico declared. He paused for a long moment, with all of us watching him intently. He took a long breath, drawing out the suspense in his usual dramatic style.

"Get on with it, Nico," Alice said exasperatedly.

He rolled his eyes at her, before saying briskly, "So, my father is sort of holding a strange kind of Olympics for demigods."

"He _what_?" more than one of us said.

"Sorry," Nico muttered, scowling. "I'm meant to say it in the ceremonial way." He drew in a long breath before reciting: "You are all formally invited to the First Shadow Games of the Underworld, hosted by Hades, Lord of the Dead. It is to be a prestigious event, with a special prize for the top three participants."

He fell silent, and we all stared at him blankly.

"When you say 'you'…" Percy said slowly, frowning deeply.

"You, Annabeth, Alice, Jane and Cyrus," Nico replied, waving his hand. "Hey, look how convenient that is, you're all here. Look, I don't know much more than that. He summoned me down there a couple of days ago, made me stay a while, then suddenly got really mad and sent me back here with the invitation. Apparently it's really important."

"Did Lord Hades tell you how the Games will work?" Chiron asked, his expression showing that he was as confused as the rest of us.

"He mentioned something about three trials," Nico said, lying back down. "I don't know what the prize is, but knowing my father, it's probably something the winner could do without."

A dull sort of silence settled on the room as we all chewed over the strange invitation. What really puzzled me was how urgent Hades was being - it sounded like…

Well, it sounded to me like he was in some sort of trouble. But that didn't make sense at all. Of all the gods I could think of, the god of the Underworld was the last one who I could imagine being in any kind of trouble.

Annabeth seemed to reach the same conclusion as me, because after several moments of deep thought, she asked Nico, "Is there anything strange going on in the Underworld? Have you heard of any problems? Has Rhea been doing something down there?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I heard something a while ago about the spirits out on the edges of some of the Fields going kind of strange, but that could be just down to, you know, spending thousands of years doing the same thing over and over. Even dead people have minds, after all."

"I've never heard of anything like this before," Chiron said quietly, after another moment of consideration. "Lord Hades has always been very guarded - he has invited people to the Underworld on perhaps two or three occasions. But this… This is completely unprecedented."

"Do you think it's a trap?" Annabeth asked him, her tone calm but deeply anxious.

"No," he said firmly. "Hades resolved many of his grudges with his brothers when he joined the battle against Kronos. There hasn't been any new fights amongst the gods since then, so it seems highly unlikely that he's trying to take some form of revenge. No, this is something new."

I looked at the centaur carefully. I got the sense that he was holding something back, that perhaps he had an idea of what was going on, but didn't want to say. I wondered, for a moment, just how many secrets the trainer of heroes had tucked away in that ancient mind. Sometimes I thought that he knew more about the Greek world than the gods themselves.

"I guess that means we can't just refuse to go?" Percy said glumly, standing up with an air of defeated resignation.

"That's right," Chiron nodded. "It would be a terrible breach of protocol to refuse a god's invitation."

Jane laughed suddenly, and we all looked at her.

"Hey, it's not so bad," she said cheerfully. "I always wanted to visit the Land of the Dead!"


	6. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Six**

* * *

_"I like you, Billy," Machiavelli said. "You are always so unfailingly optimistic. You're assuming that we're going to alive at the end of this adventure so you can buy new boots."_

–Michael Scott, 'The Enchantress'

* * *

The Games were to begin in three days' time - what is it with Greek gods and doing things in threes? - so we spent all of the intervening time in full-on training. I had been hoping to go easy on the hardcore training regimens this summer, but as ever, the universe hates me and wants me to suffer.

(Sometimes I'm sure that there's some lunatic who spends his time thinking of ways for me to have a terrible day.)

In between training sessions, I discussed the strangeness of the invitation with whoever I could.

"I'm sure there's something going on here," I told Annabeth earnestly, for the hundredth time. "Chiron was acting weird, too, when I arrived."

"Something must be going on with the Olympians," she said, tossing her dagger from hand to hand absentmindedly. "The fact that the Hunters are here is even more proof. They only come here when Artemis is doing something which she can't involve them in." Annabeth paused, then shook her head. "It's _got_ to be Rhea."

I wasn't sure, however. Something about Wilson's vagueness when I'd asked him if Rhea had given him the memory stone was making me wonder if she was the only villain in town.

Another puzzling question was, why we were invited? I could understand Nico and Jane being summoned, but Hades famously hated Percy, and he didn't even know who I was.

Or did he?

"Don't forget about the Fury who was at your school that time," Nico pointed out, when I finally got to talk to him the day after his dramatic appearance. "Hades _does_ know about you, and the Fury said something about you being important. You are not as anonymous as you'd hope."

"Clearly," I muttered. I glared out across the lake - we were sitting on the shore, waiting for dinnertime. The sky was grey overhead, and it was unseasonably chilly. The lake was still, except for a few ripples from the nereids swimming around below the surface.

"And why only us six?" I asked the son of Hades, who was leaning on his elbows, tilting his face to the sun. "It's not exactly a representative selection of camp, is it?"

"That's true," he nodded. "But if I knew the answer to that, I'd know what the real reason for the Games is. _Obviously_ this isn't my father trying to be nice. He's working towards something, and knowing him, we won't like it."

"That's for sure," I sighed. A nereid surfaced a few feet away, before vanishing again. How nice must it be, I mused, to be able to stay underwater and never have to worry about what's going on in the world above. How easy a life it must be, to never venture into the complexities of a thoughtful life.

"So are you going to tell me about Jake?" Nico asked suddenly.

"Who told you about that?" I said, giving him a sideways glance.

"Jane mentioned it," he replied. "She said that he came to see you?"

"Yeah," I said. For the third or fourth time, I recounted the strange meeting I'd had with the son of Erebus. This time, however, I told the full, unedited story.

Nico heaved a long sigh when I finished, and sat in silence for some time. I eyed him as he stared darkly into the lake, brooding over what I'd told him. He seemed to be taking it very hard, though I couldn't see why. Then again, there was a certain aspect to Nico's enmity with Wilson which I didn't quite understand.

"What do you think of that?" I said, somewhat lamely.

"It's…" Nico leaned forward, shaking his head. "That's kind of depressing. I'd hoped that there was some way to get through to him, but if the gods did that to him, there's not much hope."

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

"Jake," he said. "I've been hoping that I could save him."

Suddenly that certain aspect made a lot more sense to me.

"Why?" I said quietly.

"He's the only other son of a shadow god that I've met," the son of Hades explained, leaning back again. "I know there's Jane, but she's a bit different, Nyx is of a different type, she's not really of the Underworld the way Erebus and Hades are. I thought I'd found a sort of brother in Jake. I was so pleased when I first knew him. He's the only person I've met who knows what it's like to be so close to the darkness all the time, who knows what it is to always walk with the shadows."

Nico paused, scowling angrily.

"Then he turned out to be a traitor," he said sharply. "I remember the night I realised what was going on. We were on the quest for the Flame of Olympus, and we were staying in a motel. A little incident happened in the middle of the night, and I had a realisation. I saw Jake for what he was - an angry demigod, furious with his fate.

"I was sure I could save him. After all, Percy and Annabeth helped save me. Jake is what I would've become if it weren't for them, and I thought I could bring him back. But I see now there's no hope, not when he has a past like that."

I nodded, but said nothing. I couldn't understand how anyone could think it possible to save Wilson, but then _I_ could see his aura. I did understand where Nico was coming from, though - finally finding someone who you can connect with is a powerful thing, and I couldn't imagine what it had been like to lose that.

"But that's life!" Nico declared, standing up. "I'll get over it. Zeus knows I got over everything else."

He walked off, not glancing back as he strode away. As I watched him go, I felt a sense of deeper understanding. I saw more of where Nico was coming from - but I didn't completely believe him. He was far too stubborn to just give up on trying to save Wilson, not even after learning of the cause of the son of Erebus' conflict with the gods.

* * *

I didn't speak to Chiron for two days after Nico's arrival. He was around camp less, and when he did venture out from the Big House, he seemed perpetually distracted. Mr. D didn't turn up at camp - I asked a few people if they knew why, but they had no idea. The god of wine had been a fixture at camp every time I'd been there, so this was only more proof that something was up.

On the day before the beginning of our trip to the Underworld, I had to go to the Big House, because I'd been accidentally scheduled for two activities at the same time. Normally Mr. D would have to deal with these kind of issues - a duty he generally performed by transfiguring the confused camper's schedule sheet into a large, oily fish - but since he wasn't around, I had to go to Chiron.

Like the last few days, he was at the farmhouse. I felt a vague sense of deja vu as I wandered around the house's ground floor, before heading up the stairs.

This time, the door at the end of the top floor was ajar. Once more, I heard Chiron's voice coming from the room beyond it. It wasn't exactly the most tactful thing to do, but I went ahead and strode across the landing and into the room, pushing open the door with as strong an air of innocence as I could muster.

The centaur was indeed talking to someone, and that someone was a rather strange-looking man. The two of them were facing one another, next to a window which looked out onto camp, and were so absorbed in their whispered conversation, they didn't immediately notice my appearance. I took this momentary opportunity to examine the man who, I realised, was the guy I'd seen in this room when I'd arrived at camp.

He was tall - very tall, six foot four or more - and wore a long, flowing robe. He seemed to be of a large build, though it was hard to tell because of the size of the robe. He was bald, and very, very pale, so much so that my first thought was that he'd been pitched into a vat of powdered chalk. I only saw his profile, and could not make out all his features, but there was something disturbingly cold in his face. His skin was oddly shiny, and though he was what could be considered handsome, the deep iciness that seemed to emanate from his very bones made him quite an unnerving sight. His aura was relatively unremarkable, except for the fact that it was a uniform steely grey. Most auras contain two or three colours, but this one was completely singular in hue.

By the time I'd taken all this in, Chiron had spotted me.

"Cyrus!" he exclaimed in a slightly panicked tone. "Can I do something for you?"

I muttered something about my schedule, brandishing it protectively while backing slowly out of the room. I realised that I'd seen more that the centaur wanted, and I made a poor attempt to seem like I'd seen nothing.

Chiron didn't buy it, unsurprisingly, and muttered to Ice Face, "Excuse me."

I hurried out of the room, and he swept out after me, closing the door behind us. He faced me, and now that we alone, a sense of bravado took hold of me.

"What on earth is going on?" I asked, before I could control myself.

"What do you mean, Cyrus?" the centaur replied, without missing a beat. He was good at acting innocent, too.

"You know exactly what I mean," I said, starting to feel angry, the way I always do when people lie to me. "Who is that? Why have you been holed up here talking with him? What is going on here?"

As I finished talking, I became aware of how imperious I sounded, and stopped abruptly.

_Well_, I reflected. _This is a great way to turn Chiron against me._

However, he was not annoyed, to my surprise. Instead he just sighed, and shook his head.

"I can't risk this being leaked to the rest of camp," Chiron said softly. "If people like Percy or Nico knew what I was doing, I could lose their loyalty forever."

"Oh," I said, very quietly. Now I _really_ felt embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I'm being too nosy."

"No, no," he replied, after a moment. "I understand your position. I've told you that you have some kind of important role to play, but I haven't given you anything else to work with. You're naturally going to be incessantly inquisitive."

"Well… Yeah."

We stood in awkward silence for another few seconds, until Chiron said, "Let's talk about this downstairs."

I stepped aside to let him lead the way, and saw him casting a distrustful glance in the direction of the shut door.

He led us down to his small office at the back of the house on the ground floor. I was forcibly reminded of my last visit to this room - the night when it had been proven that I was mortal, the night before I'd left camp in a fit of pique.

This time, Chiron didn't take out his huge ledger and start musing mournfully about dead demigods and uncertain futures. No, he took a far more direct approach.

"The man upstairs is the high priest of the Rhean worshippers," the centaur said, about a second after we'd sat down.

"He's _what_?" I asked, aghast.

"All religions have a high priest," Chiron explained. "The religion that supports and worships Rhea has him, Xavier Graecus, as a leader."

"Xavier Graecus?" I echoed, astonished.

"It's not his real name. He took it, like the way new Popes take names."

"Okay," I said slowly, feeling oddly reluctant to ask the most important question. "So… why are you meeting with him?"

"I'm trying to stop a war," Chiron said simply. "I've seen too many teenagers die in the last decade. I want to try to stop this, stop it all, before we're facing another apocalypse."

I fell silent as I tried to take in what Chiron was telling me. I had never actually thought of the fact that we could always just reach an agreement with Rhea, but now that I was presented with it, the idea made a lot more sense than launching head-on into a war. Isn't that what reasonable people do? Try to talk out issues?

Then I thought of Wilson and his zealous vows to tear down Olympus. Somehow, I couldn't see him just_ talking out_ his issues..

"Do you really think you can get to an agreement?" I asked Chiron, after a long pause. "Wilson sure seems very intense about this."

"Does he?"

I remembered that I hadn't had a chance to tell the centaur about my encounter with the Dark One, so I retold the incident once again, holding back nothing. It didn't affect him like it had Nico, but it certainly didn't improve his mood, either.

"That is very discouraging," Chiron murmured, closing his eyes and resting his head on his hands. "Xavier doesn't seem to be as determined as that, but if he's answering to Jake Wilson, any hope of a truce is surely non-existent. I don't understand why the gods did that to his mother, but it's far from the first time that I've heard of something like this, and clearly Jake will never stop on his hunt for revenge."

"That doesn't really help your chances for peace, then," I said dully, feeling bad that I'd burst Chiron's bubble of expectation.

"No, indeed it doesn't," he replied. "Unless…"

Chiron went silent and glassy-eyed, as he stared into the distance.

"Unless what?" I asked curiously.

"I…" he began, sounding uncharacteristically unsure. "It's only a thought. But no. It's a little too wild." He shook his head before continuing, "At any rate, I will continue with negotiations. There is whispers among the gods that another threat is forming, something that could be a danger to both the gods and Rhea. Perhaps I can use that as a common ground between our two sides."

I frowned. "Another threat?"

"Yes," he said absentmindedly, still distracted by whatever idea had struck him. "The Olympians are very concerned about it. That's why they're meeting."

"But what's the threat?" I asked hurriedly, feeling a little concerned myself. It was bad enough that one ancient being was preparing to start knocking Olympian heads together, but now we could be dealing with _another_ bad guy?

"Well, it's—" Chiron started to say, before stopping himself, probably as he realised what he was saying. "No, I can't tell you that. I've told you too much as it is."

"Why _have_ you told me so much?" I said, my concern being pushed to the side by puzzlement. Chiron was always very sparing in how he handed out important information, so this big disclosure was highly unusual.

The centaur didn't reply right away, but just sat back in his chair. He picked up a pen on his desk and twirled it slowly between his fingers, watching it carefully as he did so. We sat there in silence for a while, until I opened my mouth to prompt him again. Just then, however, he answered.

"I need to keep you on my side, Cyrus," Chiron said quietly, finally meeting my eyes. "I know that you still haven't gotten any answers to most of your questions, and I understand that that is frustrating. I'm telling you this about the Rheans so you can see that I'm not playing you for a fool. I will give you what information I can, when I can, so that when you face the challenges which I know you _will_ face before too long, you will be prepared."

I nodded slowly, all of those unanswered questions rising to the forefront of my mind. I didn't bother interrogating Chiron, though, but instead asked something else.

"_When_ will I get answers?"

The trainer of heroes sighed, and dropped the pen back onto his desk.

"I don't know, Cyrus," he said. "I don't know."

* * *

The next morning, we left for the Underworld.

I didn't sleep much the night before - the fact that I would have to actually _do_ something in the Shadow Games hit me when I was getting into bed, and I spent several hours tossing and turning, worrying about it. My greatest fear was that there would be a huge audience of some kind - would all the spirits in the Land of the Dead turn up to watch me suck?

My only consolation was that the Games probably weren't going to be combat-orientated. If they had been, Hades certainly wouldn't have invited me or Jane.

Unless he was only holding the Games to humiliate us, in which case he was sure to invite bad fighters to some kind of gladiator fight.

But then it wouldn't matter if he was holding fights, so long as there wasn't a big audience.

But if there was a big audience…

My thoughts went around and around in this manner until about two in the morning, when I finally fell asleep from sheer psychic exhaustion.

Luckily, we didn't have to get up early - after all, you don't have to go early to a place like the Underworld, where there's no days or nights, only darkness. No, we got up at the usual time, and so only met at the Hades cabin at around eleven o'clock.

Usually, when people are leaving for a big competition of some kind, family and friends are cheerful and encouraging, wishing the contestants good luck, encouraging them to enjoy the experience. The campers did not take such an approach on this occasion, but instead treated us like we were about to go and stay a few nights in our tombs.

Which, come to think of it, was basically what we _were_ going to do.

The Hermes kids gave me sheepish handshakes after breakfast, with Anna slipping me an old silver dollar - which was probably stolen goods - and muttering something about warding off evil spirits. Kevin was a little more upbeat, but only slightly, as he was still annoyed about the result of the capture-the-flag game.

"Just remember," he told me in an unconvincingly cheerful tone, "if you die, you won't have far to go to get to Elysium. You'll be able to skip all the queues and slip in the gates!"

"Thanks, I'll bear that in mind," I replied darkly.

The six lucky contestants congregated at the Hades cabin, from where Nico was going to shadow-travel us to the Land of the Dead. None of us talked much as we joined hands, and even Jane's usual good humour was rather dampened by the occasion.

Chiron was the only one who saw us off, which was probably just as well, because if I saw one more pitying gaze thrown my way, I was going to start cursing.

"Well," Chiron declared dully, once we were all assembled and ready. "I have no idea what's going to happen to you, but I'm quite sure that I'll see you again before too long. Please, Percy, don't accidentally make Hades declare war on Poseidon, and Cyrus, before you start arguing with the Lord of the Dead, remember that he can kill you with a single glance."

Percy and I were just starting to retort in sharp annoyance and feigned innocence when Nico, in his infinite patience, got tired waiting, and whisked us off on our journey into the depths of darkness.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

_"Right," she said. "We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negative."_

–Rick Riordan, 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief'

* * *

Nico brought us straight to the scariest place in the Underworld.

At least, that's what I thought when we materialised outside Hades' huge palace. In hindsight, I was probably over-reacting a little bit, but hey, if someone transported _you_ to the doorstep of a massive, dark, ancient palace, you wouldn't be too stoic, either.

Now, how exactly can I describe this palace of the dead?

"Huge" seems an appropriate word.

So does "terrifying".

Hmm.

I don't really think I'm giving you a good picture here.

Let's try again.

Imagine a vast castle. Turrets, battlements, iron gates, sheer stone walls, tiny windows, and more iron gates.

Now, imagine that the castle is completely black, that the gates are shining bronze, that strange monsters and spirits are flying around the higher towers like enormous bats, and that an aura of power so dark and so strong, it seems to be almost in another dimension, surrounds the entire edifice.

If you can picture that, you'll have a pretty accurate image of this castle.

It didn't help that the sky was a steel grey, that the ground was iron hard and dully colourless, that the very air seemed to be dead and devoid of any sense of life, and that in the main palace gateway there stood two guards who were nothing more than bedraggled skeletons in combat armour.

I turned slowly, taking in the less-than-splendid view. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Percy and Annabeth were almost entirely unaffected by the scene - after all, this wasn't their first visit - but Jane and Alice were as taken aback as me.

The castle had two sets of gates - outer ones, which were huge and wrought from a glittering black metal, and inner ones, which were smaller and wrought from celestial bronze. Beyond the outer gates was the Underworld itself. The positioning of Hades' palace meant that we had a view of all the fields and areas of the Land of the Dead. Closest was the Fields of Asphodel, which rolled on and on into the distance, seemingly infinite, packed with millions - no, billions - of ghosts. The Fields of Punishment were further away, but we were close enough to hear the screams and to see the flash of the endless fires. Elysium was also there, an idyllic oasis amongst the darkness. Everywhere I looked, I could see auras and glows of power - the ghosts looked like foggy auras taking on human form, and Elysium was swathed in a pleasant golden glow.

We were standing in a courtyard inside the outer gates. Around us, there spread out an eldritch assortment of plants - Persephone's infamous garden, with ominous pomegranate trees and tempting bushes of golden strawberries. In front of us, there rose a set of black steps, which ended at the palace's bronze inner gates. They were open, clearly leading into the main part of the castle, but they were guarded with an air of implacability by the skeletal warriors.

"Come on," Nico said suddenly, jolting me from my reverie. "Let's go. My father is not a very patient guy."

He took off, heading up the steps towards the gates. I took another brief glance at the haunting scenes which lay beyond the outer gates, and hurried after the son of Hades. Jane followed, Percy and Annabeth had started walking at the same time as Nico, and Alice came along too, after one last lingering look.

Soon, we were standing in front of the skeletal warriors, who ignored us intently.

"Hi," Nico said to them, his tone incongruously nonchalant. I expected them to draw their swords or even just glare at us menacingly. but instead they both sidled a little to one side, keeping as far away from Nico as possible without actually walking away. The son of Hades led us on through, and the guards didn't stir until we had all passed, when they returned to their former positions with a painful creak of bone.

I glanced at Jane, who was walking along next to me, and muttered, "Any thoughts?"

"Uh," she whispered back. "Scary?"

I nodded, feeling similarly unable to articulate.

None of us spoke as we walked through the palace's atrium, which was big enough to hold several large tower blocks. It was almost entirely empty, however, with just a few ominous statues staring at us here and there and a few nice inviting dim green torches lighting our way. I realised that there was no ceiling - only the roof of the Underworld, far above. Clearly, rain was not an issue for the residents of the Land of the Dead, but I was very puzzled, because the lack of a ceiling raised the question of the impossibility of there being more floors, but from the outside there appeared to be many, many floors.

I assumed the answer was simple: A Wizard Did It.

Nico obviously knew his way, because he led us down a dizzying series of corridors and hallways with practiced ease. However, after the second or third turn, Percy looked puzzled.

"This isn't the way I remember taking the last time," he said to Nico.

"I know," was the reply. "My father moved his throne room after the war with Kronos. He got a little edgy, felt like he was a bit too close to the entrance of Tartarus."

"Oh," Percy murmured, his hand drifting to the pommel of his sword at the mention of Kronos.

We walked on in silence. My nerves tightened and tightened as we went on, and a glance at the faces of my friends showed me that they, too, were getting increasingly tense. The palace was eerily quiet - once or twice I heard the flat sound of a dull thud, and on one occasion the anachronistic noise of loud laughter echoed out through the building, but otherwise there was complete silence. It felt as though I was walking into a massive tomb - but then, from a certain point of view, I was.

The corridors were sparse enough - there were statues and pedestals here and there, with large, dark vases dotted about the place, but other than that, there was nothing to see. I wondered, as I marched down the dull halls, if Hades had something against interior design.

Finally, after trudging for what felt like miles, we stopped outside a large pair of double doors.

"Here we are," Nico declared, his overly reasonable tone promising the approach of sarcasm as he turned to face us. "Any last words?"

I tried to laugh nervously, but it failed miserably. None of the others even bothered.

"I don't suppose you have any premonition of what's going to happen?" Annabeth said, turning around and looking at Alice, who was still at the back of our morbid little party. "Any vague hunch?"

"Not really," the daughter of Apollo said dully, edging forward to make eye contact with Annabeth. "I'm not getting any sense that something bad is going to happen right now, but that doesn't really do us much, does it?"

"Just remember what Chiron said," Percy said, desperately trying to put on a hopeful expression. "It's very unlikely that this is a trap."

"You do realise that Hades can probably hear us, right?" Nico said abruptly, his tone making it clear how stupid he thought we all were. "I mean, seriously. We're going to talk about whether or not the Lord of the Dead wants to kill us _while standing outside his throne room_?"

There was a long, awkward silence.

"Look, let's just get this over with," the son of Hades sighed, shaking his head in disbelief at our imbecility. He turned and pushed open the doors.

The throne room was certainly the most impressive part of the castle I'd seen, and it was also the creepiest.

It was not as big as you'd expect - maybe only _half_ a tower block would fit into it. The room was much better lit than the corridors, with floating torches in mid-air every yard or two, and large braziers flaming away on the floor. A few skeletal guards stood at the walls, but their presence was barely noticeable. The roof of the Underworld was like a vast stone lid above us, creating an intensely claustrophobic sensation.

I shall revise my previous statement: it wasn't the throne room that was scary, the god sitting in the middle of it was.

Hades, Lord of the Dead, King of the Underworld, was seated on his black onyx throne in the centre of the chamber, wearing a pinstriped suit.

I think if he'd been wearing full Greek regalia, I would've been rather less taken aback. Seeing someone that powerful wearing regular, mortal clothes is just weird.

Once I got past the clothes, there was his physical appearance. He was tall, really tall: around seven foot or more. He was albino white, with eyes darker than any I'd seen before, even Nico's. His black hair was greasy and shoulder-length, and he had a powerful build - even if he had only been a mortal, I would not want to mess with this guy.

Then there was his aura.

I'd seen a godly aura before, but that had belonged to Mr. D, who isn't exactly known for his grand power. The aura of Hades, a member of the Big Three, was another matter entirely.

Demigodly auras typically just envelop the half-blood's head and shoulders. Godly auras are far larger. Hades' aura swathed around his entire body, extending several feet into the air around him. It was, at first glance, utterly pitch-black, but after a moment of examination I could see that it had many different shades of darkness. The sheer power of the aura was staggering - just looking at it made me dizzy, and it seemed to be imbued with a whole range of emotions and attitudes. Different parts of Hades' aura moved in different ways, too - around his head, it was still, but around his chest it swirled and twisted.

Then there was the effect the aura had on the space around it. Like Mr. D's aura, it literally bent any surrounding space, as though the fabric of reality was being shoved to one side by the sheer power of the god's presence. This, too, was a deeply disorientating sight.

The others were, of course, completely oblivious to all this, for they weren't poor schmucks with super-enhanced sight. As a result, they didn't wait for me to finish staring at the Lord of the Dead's aura, but instead hurried into the throne room so I was, for a moment, left standing in the doorway like a moron. An alarmed glance from Jane shook me from my reverie, however, and I quickly followed them.

The doors slammed shut behind me with an almost cliched level of ominousness and doominess. Despite being disorientated, scared and worried, I managed to find the space in my mind to wonder if Hades was going to treat us to a rendition of maniacal laughs and villainous speeches.

The god's behaviour was quite the opposite, however, and no less unnerving for that. He simply sat silently, watching us as we assembled in a line at the foot of his throne. There was uncomfortable silence for a few moments, and I took another glance around the throne room.

Hades' throne stood upon what was basically a very big pedestal. I felt inclined to make a sarcastic remark about putting your throne up on a freaking _pedestal_, but then he was a god, so such a remark didn't seem conducive to my chances of remaining unsmithereened.

It was a wide pedestal, and on either side of Hades' throne were two smaller thrones. They were a stark contrast to Hades' - which was wrought entirely from shiny onyx - as one was made from what looked like sheaves of wheat and the other was a fine structure of carefully-entwined flowers. It occurred to me, as I glanced again at Hades' throne, that he was normally famed for having a throne of skulls. Perhaps, I thought hopefully, the god had opted for a less intimidating piece of dramatic furniture so as to make us feel less concerned about the future of our biological statuses.

By this stage, Nico had gotten fed up with Hades just staring at us, so he got the ball rolling by saying, "Here are the contestants for the Shadow Games, father."

"Yes, I can see that," the Lord of the Dead replied smoothly. His voice wasn't as deep or scary as I'd expected, but then I hadn't expected him to be wearing a pinstriped suit, either.

After another pause, much briefer this time, Hades stood up. His height was accentuated by his being on a raised platform, so it was like looking at a very well-dressed giant. I glanced around at my friends to see what their reactions were. Percy, Annabeth and Nico looked oddly bored, as though this kind of thing had become nothing more than painful routine for them, while Alice and Jane had that alarmed expression which you usually find on the faces of people about to be electrocuted.

As I glanced her way, Alice happened to look up at me, and our eyes briefly met. She recoiled ever so slightly, the same way she'd reacted back in the forest, but this time she hid it much better.

I didn't have time to think about this, though, as Hades finally started talking.

"To be honest, I didn't expect you all to come," he said, standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze directed into the middle distance. He spoke quietly, but his voice was still highly audible. "I knew _you'd_ come, Perseus," Hades cast a withering glance at the son of Poseidon, who made no reply, but I clearly saw his jaw clench, "But I wasn't sure about the rest of you." He looked at each one of us, going from face to face. He met my eyes for a moment, scrutinising me. I tried hard to not flinch away from the intensity of his gaze, but it felt as though I was literally wilting under his dark-eyed glare. It was a great relief when he nodded, in a slightly approving manner, and turned away.

"So obviously you're wondering what the Shadow Games are," Hades went on, now pacing around. "You'll be pleased to know that these Games are completely non-lethal."

"Wow, thanks," Percy muttered darkly. Hades gave him another withering look, but said nothing.

"So what are the rules?" Annabeth asked, her tone businesslike.

Hades didn't reply at once, instead pacing up and down the pedestal with a strangely moody air. Finally, he said, "You will all face three tasks. Each of you will face these tasks alone, and failure at any point during the tasks will mean instant disqualification. Those of you - if any - who complete the tasks will receive," he paused with what I can only describe as a disturbingly ominous air, "a special prize."

The god flung himself back onto his throne, and said no more.

After a disbelieving pause, Percy spoke for us all by saying, "That's it? That's all you're telling us?"

Nico was standing a step in front of the rest of us, so I couldn't see his face, but I was sure I heard him sigh. Meanwhile, Hades' expression showed great irritation, though he didn't look ready to make some corpses _just_ yet.

"What else do you want to know?" he said coolly, not meeting the son of Poseidon's gaze.

If Percy had anything but seaweed in his head, he would've backed down at that point, but he proved the depth of kelp in his cranium by saying, "How about you tell us why you're suddenly holding these Games? Or why you've picked _us_ to be part of them?"

I was absolutely certain that the good folk in the Fields of Punishment were about to hold a welcoming party for Percy Jackson, but Hades remained entirely calm.

"You will know all of this in due course," he said, still icy cool. "I will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it. That way, we can all avoid any confusion." Now a cold glance was sent at Nico. "The Games will begin in three hours. All of you will now go your rooms to prepare. Meet me outside this palace in two and a half hours."

I blinked, and Hades vanished, without so much as a whisper of air or a ripple of shadow.

"Well," I said to Nico, "your dad seems like a really friendly guy!"

* * *

Nico apparently knew exactly where we had to go, because he led us straight to a hall of bedrooms, each of which was identical, and each of which looked out onto the happy, cheerful view that was the Fields of Asphodel.

"Did you really have to do that?" Annabeth said to Percy, as we filed into one of these dark but well-furnished rooms. There was a massive bed, three armchairs, a desk, and a large window - which didn't make sense to me, because I'd only seen small windows from the outside.

"Do what?" Percy muttered, looking antagonised, as he strode across the room.

"Be so irritating," she replied flatly, perching herself on the edge of the bed. "The last thing we need is Hades turning against us."

"I was just trying to get some answers!" the son of Poseidon said defensively, now standing by the window.

"It doesn't matter," Nico broke in, as he closed the door softly. "I've seen my father like this before. He's got some sort of plan, and nothing is going to stop him from putting it into action."

He began pacing around the room, and I sat down in one of the armchairs. Alice joined Percy in staring out the window, and Jane sat next to Annabeth.

"Then what's the plan?" I asked of the room in general. No-one replied, and nor did I expect them to. I was only voicing the question that kept going around and around in my head.

Now that I thought about it, I felt sure that all of the unusual things which were happening were linked in some way. Jake coming to see me, the Olympians holding a secretive council, Chiron having talks with the Rheans, the rumours of some new threat, Hades' cryptic Shadow Games. I couldn't find a common element between them, but the fact that they were all happening at once had to be more than a mere coincidence.

"Is it just me," Alice said suddenly, "or does the Field of Asphodel look a little under-populated?"

"What do you mean?" Nico said quickly, walking over to the window.

"It just seems like it's not busy enough," she replied thoughtfully, tapping her chin. "Or is it only my imagination?"

Jane joined them, followed by me and Annabeth.

"I think you're right," the daughter of Athena said, after a moment's observation. "It _does_ look like there's fewer ghosts here than the last time."

"But why would that be?" Jane said quietly.

I didn't really see what Alice was getting at - the Fields looked pretty darn full to me - but I did think that the Field was unnaturally dark, even considering that we were underground, as though a shadow was being cast over it by something that was entirely invisible.

"This can all only mean one thing," Nico said, after a long pause. "Something deeply disruptive is happening in the Underworld, something so strange that it's driven my father to invite half-bloods into his kingdom for the first time in centuries."

He turned away from the window, and went on, "It must be something to do with Rhea. After all, who else could be doing this?"

"But Rhea's power can't extend down here," Alice pointed out, turning to stare at him doubtfully. "I was there when we fought her, remember? She wasn't that strong, and she didn't even get free of her prison."

"But it _has_ to be do with her," Nico replied, shaking his head, pacing around the room again. "After all, remember Phaethon? Rhea got him out of the Underworld somehow."

"Maybe not. Maybe that was just Jake's doing."

For a moment I considered telling them that Chiron was negotiating with the Rhean high priest, but I remembered how much he had wanted that kept secret, so instead I said, "Chiron mentioned something about the Olympians being worried about a new threat."

"Really?" Nico said, turning to me.

"Yeah," I nodded, moving back to my chair. "He didn't say what it was, but apparently it's not good…"

There was a long moment of silence as we all considered the situation.

"Well," Jane said dully, "this is certainly shaping up to be an exciting summer."


	8. Chapter Eight

**Author's Note: In light of the recent publication of The House of Hades, I thought I should remind you all that the Piece of Darkness series (and its prequel, Rise of the Forgotten) takes place in a alternate timeline, where the events of Heroes of Olympus never happened. In my timeline, there is no Roman camp, and none of the characters introduced in HoO exist in this version (probably). The war with Gaia did happen, but it was a more minor affair than it is in HoO.**

**Also, one or two things popped up in HoH which also appear in this story. The entirety of this story was written months before I read HoH, so any similarity is entirely accidental.**

**Finally, since I'm writing an Author's Note, I might as well remind all you silent readers of this fix to leave a review! ;-)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

_Lord Vetinari sounded like a man straining to see a light at the end of a tunnel._

_"Certainly! I would be astonished if they haven't made considerable progress!" said Leonard of Quirm happily._

_"Ah?" The Patrician sank a little in his chair. It had turned out that the end of the tunnel was on fire._

—Terry Pratchett, 'Jingo'

* * *

Our council of war went on for a few minutes more, before we all dispersed into our individual rooms to prepare for the Games.

"I wonder if I should deliberately fail in the tasks?" I said to Nico as I left the room.

"I wouldn't recommend that," he said, laughing a little. "You never know with the gods. There could be an instant-death trap if you don't try hard enough."

In each of our rooms, there was a large wooden chest at the end of the bed. I opened mine to find a vast array of weapons - swords, knives, spears, shields, armour, bows and even a very scary-looking mace. I took what I was comfortable with: a knife and a bow with a large quiver of arrows. (I couldn't find a shield or armour light enough for a wimp like me to manage without toppling over.)

By the time I was fully equipped and ready to go, there was still another hour until we had to rejoin Hades. So, I decided to go from room to room and badger— I mean, talk to everyone.

I didn't actually know who was in which room, so it was a rather random experience. I forgot to knock the first time and found myself walking in on Percy and Annabeth having a distinctly intimate conversation. Luckily, I retained enough common sense to retreat quickly before they saw me.

The next room turned out to be Jane's.

"Oh, hi," she said, upon answering my knock. "Did you have a a sudden, blinding realisation of what's going on?"

"No," I said, closing the door and leaning against it. "But I was just thinking that if these are _Shadow_ Games, you and Nico are really going to have the edge."

"That's true," Jane nodded. She sat down in a chair, and went on, "But that's if this is really a competition. We can't even assume that. I mean, if you think about it, this could be anything - even an execution!"

Unfortunately, that was worryingly true.

"How are your powers going?" I asked her, trying to think of something less depressing.

"Pretty good," Jane replied. She closed her eyes, and stretched her hand out towards a particularly shadowy corner of the room. I watched with interest as the darkness rippled, coiled, and then began to take shape. Jane's hand clenched into a fist as the shape took on more definition, and suddenly the shadows coalesced into a life-size, 3D illusion of a large, roaring lion.

"Holy crap!" I yelped, rearing backwards and hitting my head against the door. Jane laughed, and opened her fist. The illusion melted back into the darkness like an ice cube dissolving into boiling water.

"That's my newest trick," Jane said drily. "I think it's pretty effective, don't you?"

* * *

Alice was the next victim of Cyrus Wright, the annoying door-to-door salesman.

"Hi," she said, sounding surprised, as she opened the door. "Has something attacked you?"

"No," I said, "not yet, anyway."

I followed her into the room - which was, of course, identical to all the others - and stood around awkwardly. Going around saying hello to everyone had seemed like a good idea at first, but now it seemed like I'd just managed to create awkward situations for myself.

"So how come Annabeth was asking you if you had any premonitions?" I asked, as that conversation from earlier suddenly came back to me.

Alice looked a little surprised by my question, but replied evenly, "It was to do with the main power I got from Apollo. It's a bit unusual for his children, but I have it."

"And how does it work?" I asked, intrigued.

"Basically, it's limited foresight," Alice said, leaning on the wall by the window. "I can sometimes sense important events when they're about to happen. I can't see anything way in the future, but if something big is going to happen in the near future, I get a sort of premonition about it."

"That must be very useful," I said thoughtfully.

"Not much as you'd think," she said ruefully. "I've often gotten a moment of foresight and I didn't realise that it _was_ foresight, and then there's been times when I had no foresight at all. It's kind of like a radio station which is really hard to find."

"I see," I nodded. I crossed to the window to take another stare at the vast fields of spirits. The truly disconcerting thing about it was not the sheer number of ghosts - after all, billions upon billions have lived and died - but rather the fact that so many were trapped in an eternity of neutral, ambivalent dulness. All of those spirits, I realised, were still conscious in some way or another. Was that really what the afterlife was about? An endless, inescapable prison of greyness and mundanity?

I couldn't help but wonder if the people being tortured in the Fields of Punishment were better off than the souls corralled into the Fields of Asphodel.

"It sure didn't help save Jake, anyway," Alice said suddenly, startling me from my philosophical musings.

"Huh?" I asked, turning to her.

"My foresight," she elaborated. "It didn't help me find a way to save Jake."

"Oh," I said slowly, puzzled by this random remark. "You mean, you knew him?"

"Yes," Alice murmured. "I knew him… well. Very well."

I met her eyes for a moment, and again caught that strange sense of surprise which Alice had about her whenever she talked to me. Instinctively, I opened my mouth to ask her what on earth she was so surprised by, but at the last moment I changed my mind. There were enough issues to deal with at the moment, so there was no point pushing another one into the pot.

* * *

The next room was, of course, Nico's.

I made sure to knock vociferously before I went in: I really didn't want to walk in on Nico doing some son-of-Hades ghost-summoning preparatory ritual.

He opened the door after a brief pause.

"Hi there," he said, an amused look in his eye when he saw me at his door, "ready to be killed by the Lord of the Dead?"

"Wow, Nico," I said drily. "Where did you learn to be so uplifting?"

Nico laughed, and turned into his room. He was, as ever before battle, clad in only a celestial bronze breastplate and armed with only his Stygian iron sword. As I closed the door behind me, he shut the lid on his weapons chest with a flick of his foot.

"None of that is any good to me," the half-blood said, shaking his head. "I'm too used to fighting in… what does Annabeth call it? 'A minimalistic style.'"

"Well, your style works," I pointed out, as I sat down on the bed. "But then maybe there won't be any fighting involved in the Games."

"Oh, there will," Nico said knowingly, as he paced about. "I don't know what the purpose of the Games is, but I know that Hades wants to make a spectacle out of it. He wants to make it into the Underworld's version of the Olympic Games."

"For a minute there I thought you were going to say 'Hunger Games'," I muttered. "How's he going to make it into a spectacle?"

Nico stopped pacing and leaned his back against the wall in front of me. "Can't tell you that," he said sagely, nodding knowingly. "You'll see."

I rolled my eyes. Nico always behaved as though he was in a cliched thriller - it took either severe interrogation or impending crisis to make him reveal all the really interesting information.

"So, three tasks," I said. "What about them? Do you know anything? Will you tell me what you know?"

"I do know a little," Nico nodded. "Firstly, participants will face each task one at a time."

"Oh my _God_, di Angelo," I groaned, burying my face in my hands.

"Okay, okay," he chuckled evilly, going back to pacing about like a well-armed animal. "I'll tell you more. We face the tasks individually, and each task is based around a central ability or skill. The purpose of the task is to test our level of proficiency in that ability or skill."

"And what are the abilities being tested?" I asked, raising my head.

"There's three of them," the son of Hades said, in a serious tone which _nearly_ convinced me that he was telling me something amazingly important. I didn't even bother saying anything, but just glared at him. He got the message, and went on, "The first is our ability to cope with disorientation. In particular, I think this will test how well each one of us can get past an obstacle while disorientated. The second task will test our combat skills in some way, I'm not sure exactly how. Then, the last test will focus on our problem-solving skills. Of course, all of these tasks will probably also involve the possibility of instant death, because the Olympian gods are sadists."

I glanced around nervously. "You should probably be careful, saying things like that."

"It's fine," Nico said, waving his hand airily. "Hades isn't going to kill his only son."

"I admire your optimism," I muttered darkly.

* * *

We talked a little more, sharing cheerful speculations on such happy areas as doom, death and apocalypse, before the time came for us to enter the First Annual Shadow Games.

We hoped, of course, that the odds would be ever in our favour.

(Forgive the Hunger Games references, but it seems very apt.)

Nico led us back through the castle, out to the courtyard. My sense of anticipation built gradually as we journeyed - in silence, because there's no other way to walk through the Lord of the Dead's palace - to the main gate. Before too long, we were in the main atrium.

"Any last words?" Jane asked me as we drew near the gate.

"Yeah," I muttered. "Please, God, let me live."

"I don't know if God has any power down here…" she said doubtfully.

"He does if I believe he does."

Hades was waiting for us outside. As we approached him, I was struck by how excited he seemed. He was tapping his feet, eager to move, and a glint of enthusiasm was sparking in the depths of his coal-dark eyes. This didn't exactly make me feel better - an excited god can, I felt, never be a good thing.

"Follow me," he instructed, when we got down to where he stood at the bottom of the steps.

Hades turned on his heel and marched off at a brisk pace. We all hurried along in his wake, barely keeping up. He led us, not out of the palace grounds as I'd been expecting, but down the left-hand side of the palace walls. Before too long, we reached the castle's back garden.

Because this was a god's palace, the back garden was the biggest back garden I'd ever seen in my life. It was probably about the size of two football pitches. Dark, tufty grass stretched on into the distance, dotted with islands of grey flowers and clusters of dull trees. Large boulders ornamented the edges of the garden at intervals, and of course there were numerous statues of Hades himself strewn around the place like narcissistic garden gnomes.

The god led us towards one of those boulders, and paused in front of it. It was even taller than Hades, and wide enough to crush a car. It rather reminded me of those cartoon boulders you'd often see Wiley Coyote buried under.

Jane and I exchanged puzzled glances, and Percy scratched his head uneasily, as Hades reached his hand out to the rock. He pressed his fingers against it, murmuring a few words in Ancient Greek. The boulder shook ever so slightly, then began to slowly slide to one side. As it moved away from its original position, it revealed a large hole in the ground.

I glanced at each of my fellow Shadow Gamers. All of them looked surprised and more than a little alarmed, except for Nico, who, characteristically, just looked bored.

When the boulder had fully moved to one side, Hades glanced over his shoulder at us, and said, "Come."

He stepped into the hole and, I realised, began walking down a set of steps.

We followed him, going in single file, with Nico taking the lead. Jane and I were the last to go down, and we locked eyes for a moment. Deep unease was clear on her face, as it probably was on mine. I shrugged as if to say, what else can we do? Then I followed the others, walking down steps which became visible only when you actually stood on them.

As it turned out, there was only about nine steps, just enough to bring us fully below ground (then again, we were _already_ below ground, so we were technically going below below-ground, which gives you a headache if you think about it for too long), and into a reasonably large tunnel.

It was darker down here, but luckily the tunnel was entirely straight, with no corners or junctures, so all we had to do was keeping walking in a straight line. The roof was about eight feet above us and the tunnel was wide enough for us to walk three-abreast, but the dull ambient light that illuminated the tunnel was bright enough to see only a few feet in front of us. Sound was also dulled, with the noise of our footsteps muffled and oddly distant.

As we worked to keep up with Hades, it occurred to me that I had never heard of tunnels like this existing in the Underworld. The more I thought about it, the more I realised how little I really knew about the geography of the Land of the Dead. People only ever talked about the places where the spirits were: the Fields, Elysium, the Isles of the Blest and so on, but our current journey was showing me that there was far more to the Underworld than that. Who knew how many sub-subterranean tunnels and chambers snaked through this dark land? After all, very few heroes and gods had ever spent time down here, so how _could_ non-residents have a realistic concept of its layout?

This theory of mine got further proof when, after a few minutes' trudging, we started passing through larger chambers. Every once in a while, the tunnel would open out into a large, cathedral-like cave, with a high, arching ceiling and all manner of things within it. The first such chamber was some sort of weapons forge: large furnaces burned with black fire at the walls of the chamber, and skeletal blacksmiths slaved away around them, hammering out Stygian swords and spears upon stone anvils. The air was stuffy with swirling smoke, making many of us cough and wheeze. The walls were hung with countless Stygian weapons and tools, and a few ominous piles of bones lay here and there.

"Undead blacksmiths," Nico whispered to us as we neared the other side of the chamber. "The most consistent, hard-working and replaceable workers in the world."

We left the chamber and were led on down the tunnel by Hades. A few minutes later, we entered a new chamber, smaller than the first. It contained only six large cages, three on either side of the path on which we walked. Each one was a square metal box with iron bars on the front, and each one was about six foot tall and wide. I squinted into them as we walked past, but I could see nothing except the glint of a celestial bronze chain.

"You can't see the prisoners who are held in these prisons," Nico murmured. "They are all terrible, dark spirits, bound by cloaks of darkness which conceal them from the eyes of all but the more powerful immortals."

The next chamber, which we came to about three minutes later, was smaller again, but no less curious. Dotted around the chamber were five small ponds, out of which ran tiny streams. These streams flowed along the ground for several feet before disappearing into swallow holes. The truly intriguing thing about these waters, however, was their colours. One was black and frothing, another was grey and viscous. The third was literally liquid fire, the fourth was clear and fast-flowing, while the fifth looked almost frozen.

"These are the sources of the rivers of the Underworld," Nico told us. "They're all here: Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Phlegethon and Cocytus. They all begin here, in this cave."

"_Oh_," Annabeth murmured, fascination strong in her voice.

I'd heard of the Styx and the Lethe, but not the others. I found it more than a little astounding that the legendary Styx began in such a small way, but then I suppose all great things do.

We left that chamber and walked on for another while. By this time, I was really beginning to get fed up with the seemingly endless walking. Was Hades giving us impromptu fitness training? Or was he just trying to wear us down so that we'd really suck once the Games kicked off?

Suddenly, we stopped.

I frowned. We'd reached a dead end. In front of Hades, there was nothing but a stone wall. Was this it? Were the Shadow Games going to be held down here, in the most removed, most distant corner of western civilisation?

I glanced at Nico, trying to gauge what was about to happen, but his face was expressionless. My friends looked as confused as me, and Percy was quite literally scratching his head.

Hades turned to face us, and reached out his hand to Nico, who took it wordlessly.

"All of you join hands, in a chain," the god told us. We obeyed, forming a direct human chain from Hades to me.

The god raised his free hand into the air, and made a swift gesture.

The shadows suddenly surged around us, engulfing us. I recognised it as shadow-travel - having been brought on many shadow-travel trips by Nico - though it was a great deal faster and smoother than any of the trips I'd had with the son of Hades.

As suddenly as they'd consumed us, the shadows spat us back out.

I think all of us, except Nico, gasped in unison.

We were standing at the centre of a vast circular arena, around which rose tiers upon tiers of seats, stretching up into the sky. The faces of innumerable spirits were peering down at us, and large braziers of Greek fire blazed around the arena, illuminating us for all to see.

"Welcome," Hades said quietly, "to the Coliseum of the Dead."


	9. Chapter Nine

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

"_Tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you."_

[Leviathan rounds corner.]

_"I… don't see how that's a party."_

–Iron Man & Black Widow, 'The Avengers'

* * *

It was, without question, the largest structure I had ever seen. We were standing at the centre of an arena that was big enough to hold ten city blocks and that was encircled by stands that were taller than most skyscrapers. The walls which ringed the arena were twice as big as those in mortal stadiums.

It wasn't just big, though - it was frightening. The stadium's structure appeared to be hewn entirely from bone and obsidian, which created an eerie spectacle of white and black. The walls which ran around the arena were plated with reflective celestial bronze, so looking at them made me feel as though I was trapped in some sort of strange hall of mirrors. The arena itself was empty, and the ground was actually transparent. We were standing on some kind of see-through substance that felt like hard rock underfoot, but it was as clear as the finest glass.

Underneath this odd surface lay a system of tunnels and caves which looked an awful lot like a maze. At one end of the arena there was a hole in the ground which led to a tunnel into the maze, while at the opposite end there was an opening in the wall, into which I couldn't see.

The eeriest thing of all, however, were the ghosts.

Every one of them - and there were hundreds of thousands in the enormous stands around us - was utterly silent. They surveyed us intently, taking in our every move, but they made no sound, not even to greet Hades. They were largely motionless, and this combined with their grey colour made me feel as though I'd been dropped into the middle of the universe's biggest statuary.

It was, without doubt, one of the strangest things I have ever seen in my life.

It got even stranger when Hades stepped out and bowed to the crowd as if they were applauding. I looked at them carefully, and _realised_ they were clapping, but it was silent. Their hands moved swiftly, their mouths opened wide, but I heard nothing.

"This is unbelievable," Annabeth said quietly, staring wildly. "I've never even heard of this place. It's _huge_…"

"There are great swathes of the Underworld which are unknown to almost everyone," Nico told her, glancing around with a calm air that showed he'd been here many times. "The Land of the Dead is even bigger than Olympus, and some say that even Hades has not been to the furthest depths of it."

"It's unbelievable," Alice murmured. She'd gone white as a sheet, and was shaking a little. "There's so much energy down here, so many fates and destinies concentrated in one place. It's… it's _palpable_."

Sure enough, as I gazed around at this deathly coliseum, my sight began to kick in. The sheer amount of ghosts congregated together was creating a vast aura which encompassed the entire structure like a massive grey storm cloud. The energy levels were obviously very strong, but I didn't feel it the way Alice seemed to. The vibrancy of the ghosts was clear, though - they looked much closer to being alive than any of the spirits up on the surface.

(I'm not sure what it says about your situation when you start thinking of the Fields of Asphodel as the _surface_.)

Hades' aura had grown even more powerful, darker and stronger, more vibrant and compelling. I looked at my friends' auras: Jane's and Nico's had taken on a more powerful look, but the others' had become duller and more washed-out.

Hades turned back to us.

"So now you are seeing the true depths of the Land of the Dead," he told us, with more than a hint of pride in his voice. "For eons, the Underworld has had a reputation for being a dull, uneventful place - apart from all the torture - but perhaps now the truth will come out."

None of us replied, for we were too busy gaping at our surroundings. The spectrum of reactions was interesting: it ranged from Percy, who looked as though he'd been vigorously hit over the head with a metal baseball bat, to Annabeth, who looked as though she was trying to draw schematics of the coliseum in her head.

"Now," the god went on, "I'm sure you're all eager to get into the Games—"

This sarcastic comment drew an equally sarcastic murmur of, "Yeah, right," from Percy.

"—but each of you must wait your turn to enter the course. Now, follow me."

He strode off once again, this time in the direction of the hole in the arena wall. We scurried after him and I, at least, was painfully aware of all the ghosts staring at us. I didn't glance around at them again, however, not wanting to remind myself of the sheer scale of our situation.

The hole in the wall turned out to be another tunnel - a short one, mercifully. It led to a wooden door, behind which we found a small waiting room. There was six chairs, a few bottles of water - which was rather considerate of Hades, I guess - and a bronze bell on a small wooden shelf.

"When the bell rings, one of you will go out to the arena," Hades instructed us. "You will go out in alphabetical order, so you," he pointed at Annabeth, "will go first, and you," now he pointed at me, "shall be last."

Without bothering to wish us luck, he strode out of the room, swinging the door shut behind him.

Nico immediately threw himself into a chair - the room was too small for even him to pace around - and, after a confused pause, we did the same.

"This is ironic," Jane said as she took her seat. "We're seeing formerly-unseen reaches of the Underworld, we're about to go through a complex and probably ancient shadow maze, and yet we're sitting in a waiting room which is exactly the same as any other waiting room I've ever been in."

"At least we don't have to sit out there with all those ghosts," Percy pointed out, sitting down with an air of unease. "Who are all those guys, anyway?"

"What do you mean, who are they?" I said, sighing as I sat down. "They're just more dead people."

"Not exactly," Nico said, stretching out his arms above his head. "These ghosts are a little different - they are the people who Hades feels are truly exemplary. The judges of the Underworld determine the fate of every spirit who passes through, but sometimes Hades steps in and makes an overruling judgment. That is who fills this stadium."

"There seems to be a lot of them," Alice said confusedly, fiddling with the straps of her backpack as she slid it from her shoulders.

"Really?" Nico said darkly. "Consider how many billions of people have lived and died on this planet, and look again at the people out there. A couple hundred thousand out of billions and billions isn't that many, is it?"

None of us said anything in reply to that depressing thought - there was nothing _to_ be said.

I glanced at Annabeth, who was eying the bell warily. It occurred to me that this could be the last time all of us would be together for a long time. What if something went wrong? What if the Games had some in-built death clause? Would all of us be returning to camp at the end of this, or would one of us - or more - be left behind in the Fields above us?

The bell rang.

It was only a single, brief tinkle, but at that moment I completely understood the phrase, _for whom the bell tolls_.

Annabeth didn't stand immediately, but sat still for a moment, staring at the ground meditatively.

"You won't die," Nico said to her, trying, for once, to be genuinely reassuring. "Hades didn't bring us down here to kill us in front of his favourite ghosts."

"Then _why_ are we here?" she said, meeting his eyes.

"I don't know," he said grimly. "But you're about to find out."

Annabeth rose, and moved to the door. Percy started to stand, too, but she gave him a sharp glance, and he hurriedly sat back down.

"You'll be fine," the son of Poseidon said. "It's just unfair that you're going to win this before the rest of us get a chance to try."

Annabeth laughed and, before any of us had a chance to say something more, she opened the door and strode off down the tunnel.

The door slowly swung itself shut, and thus six became five.

A second had barely past before Percy jumped up and went to the door. He opened it and leaned on the doorframe, listening. I pricked up my ears also, trying to hear some indication of what Annabeth was doing, but there was nothing except utter silence.

After five minutes of intently listening to utter silence, Percy glanced at Nico and said, "How come we can't hear those ghosts? I saw they were clapping but I didn't hear anything."

"I did," the son of Hades shrugged. "What about you, Jane?"

"I heard the sounds of applause, but it was quite faint," she said, looking between Nico and Percy with confusion. "It sounded like it was coming from the other end of a tunnel."

"Interesting," Nico said thoughtfully, tapping his chin with one finger. "I can hear them because I'm on their frequency. Dead people… they don't operate on the same level of reality as people who are alive. Everything is much slower with them, even sound. Unless they find a way to bring themselves onto the frequency of the living, only someone who can go to their level can hear them or talk to them. I sort of do that automatically because I'm a son of Hades, and Jane can do it partially because Nyx has a partial connection to the Underworld."

"Is there any way for someone without that power to get onto their frequency?" I asked, intrigued.

"Sometimes," he nodded, his expression growing darker. "But only if that person has experienced death first-hand. And even that isn't always enough - something has to happen which pushes them to summon the energy needed to make that connection. Take Orpheus, for instance. When his wife died, he came to the Underworld and he was able to communicate with the spirits to a certain degree because the grief over his wife's death made him powerful enough to make the connection."

As I listened to Nico, it struck me for the first time how deep his understanding of death really was. Despite his being the son of the god of the dead, we had never really talked much about the Underworld - I had always been a little reluctant to enter into such a depressing area. Now that I heard him talking about it, though, I was astonished by the extent of his knowledge. All that dark information stowed away in his pale, Italian head…

Percy, still standing at the door, said, "How come you never told us about all this before? The Coliseum, these chosen spirits, all these hidden areas of the Underworld…"

"It never really came up," Nico said, shrugging. "You never asked. It was never a life-or-death matter, and those are the only important ones for us, right?"

"True."

Silence reigned once more as we all stared vacantly into space and contemplated our fate. Every now and then I checked my watch and was surprised by how much time had passed since I'd last looked at it. I was just about to try to start a conversation, when the bell rang.

I looked around quickly, trying to remember everyone's surname. Alice was ahead of me, however.

"That's for you," she said to Nico softly. He nodded, and rose to his feet, rubbing his hands briskly.

"Well, I guess I must be off," he said nonchalantly, strolling over to the door. Percy opened it and stepped to one side, before exchanging a manly handclasp with his cousin.

"If I have any advice for you guys," Nico said, slowly stepping backwards out of the room, "it's this."

He paused dramatically, waiting for one of us to prompt him to go on. When none of us did, he said, with an air of someone imparting great, secret knowledge, "Run."

He turned away, letting the door slowly swing shut behind him.

And so there was four.

Percy sat down after hovering uncertainly for a moment. I got the sense that he was feeling a little impotent: he always struck me as the kind of guy who took on the responsibility of protecting the people he cared about, so not being able to fulfil that role was probably a little unsettling for him.

"I'll be next," Alice said, in a morbid tone which strongly suggested that she was heading for the gallows.

(I was beginning to see that she wasn't the cheeriest of types.)

(Then again, I cannot really throw stones from this glass house.)

"I'm sure you'll do well," Jane said positively, nodding at Alice in an encouraging manner. "Your powers will come in handy in a maze, especially if there's obstacles or surprise monsters."

"Good point," Alice replied, sounding unconvinced. "You always know exactly what to say, Jane."

A thought struck me as I heard them talk.

"How do you two know each other?" I asked, eyeing them.

"She's my sword-fighting instructor," Jane informed me. "She's been training me for about a year now."

"I have," Alice said, with a hint of pride. "And she's one of my best students!"

"Apart from how I just _can't_ use a shield and a sword at the one time," Jane muttered.

"Well, you know," the daughter of Apollo said diplomatically. "Not everyone can be offensive _and_ defensive."

The two of them started talking about sword-fighting techniques. I listened only vaguely, as I was nervous enough without making myself think about sword-fighting.

We had to wait a good while more for the next ring of the bell than we had the last time. I wasn't sure what to draw from that: perhaps Nico was taking longer in getting through the course, or perhaps he was getting further than Annabeth had.

Finally, after a seemingly interminable wait, the bell rang for a third time.

Alice was on her feet almost instantly. She seemed eager just to get out there, to get the whole thing over with. To a certain degree, I felt the same way.

"Well," she declared just before she left the room. "I can see one thing in our futures."

"What's that?" Percy asked worriedly.

"This is gonna suck," she replied, before slipping out the door.

Percy, who was next, grew increasingly restless as he waited to be called.

"I wonder what the prize is," he said to me. "Knowing Hades, it'll probably be something really creepy."

"Who knows?" I shrugged. "Maybe he'll make us immortal or something."

Percy seemed to find this idea especially hilarious.

"One thing's for sure," Jane said wisely. "You won't be able to use your godly powers."

"Yeah, that's true," he said worriedly. "Maybe that's why Hades invited me. He just wants me to make an idiot of myself. I'll mess up or something and he'll laugh at me in front of all his favourite spirits."

I wondered if Hades really disliked Percy enough to go to the bother to do that. Surely even Hades wasn't _that_ vindictive?

Alice didn't take quite as long as Nico. Soon enough, the bell rang for Percy.

The son of Poseidon, despite being the great and mighty saviour of the West, was more nervous than any who had gone before. He edged over to the door, rubbing his brow, and opened the door tentatively, as though expecting something monstrous to leap out at him.

"You'll be fine, Percy," Jane said reassuringly.

"I dunno," he muttered. "I'm a bit out of practice. I haven't fought a monster since the winter!"

I felt like mentioning that I hadn't fought a monster since ever, but decided not to put that out there. Even I have to try to keep up a little street cred.

Percy shuffled off to his doom, leaving Jane and me alone.

I felt a certain sense of deja vu as I sat there with the daughter of Nyx. Around a year ago, we had sat together in the Hermes cabin, both completely new to camp, both unsure as to what faced us. Now, here we were again, facing into a similar situation.

Jane, it seemed, felt the same.

"Just like old times, huh?" she said drily, moving to sit next to me. "But seriously, what do you think is out there?"

"Something scary," I said, with great solemnity, displaying my infinite wisdom. Jane stared at me, waiting for me to continue, then burst out laughing when I didn't.

"You're as bad as Nico. I swear he's been giving you lessons on being sarcastic."

I laughed. "Well, no better guy to learn from."

There was a brief pause, then Jane said, in a more uncertain tone, "I don't think I'm going to do well at all."

"Why?" I asked, glancing at her in surprise. It wasn't really like her to be pessimistic.

"I don't know…" she shook her head. "I don't have experience, or power or skill. None of the things I can do with shadows have any actual _use_."

"Don't worry about it," I said, patting her on the shoulder awkwardly. "I get the feeling that this is one competition which you won't want to do well in."

"Really?"

"Yup," I said wisely. "I mean, come on, we're in a secret part of the Land of the Dead. How fun can things get?"

The bell rang.

"That was quick," Jane said, surprised. "Percy must have gotten through it pretty fast."

I didn't point out that that was a very optimistic inference.

She stood up, and turned to face me.

"There's nothing else to say, I guess," Jane said quietly. "Good luck."

"You too," I said grimly. She turned and walked out the door, without looking back.

And so, once again, I was alone.

My anticipation had been building since we'd entered the Underworld, and now that I was alone, it came to the forefront of my mind with full force. The many different possible horrors that could be waiting for me began to run through my mind, and despite the rather lame reassurance I'd given Jane, I began to wonder if there was some sort of terrible punishment for failing in the Games. What if I was condemned to an eternal torture in the Fields of Punishment? How was I supposed to explain that to my parents? "Hi, Mom, I got brought down to a cave in the depths of the Underworld for a big contest and I failed, so I'm spending the rest of eternity being tortured! But don't worry, I'm sure I'll see you when you die. Talk soon!"

I shook myself. Hades was trying to _improve_ his relations with the outside world, and inviting people just to kill them wouldn't help that. No, the thing I actually had to worry about was the maze. Anything could be in there - monsters, traps, tricks, perhaps even terrible violin players.

I didn't like to admit it to myself, but I was terrified of looking like a fool. I have my pride, probably too much of it, and the idea of being humbled in front of all these people, in front of a _god_, was almost too much to bear.

The bell rang.

I gulped.

I debated, for a brief moment, not going out at all, but knowing the Greek gods, Hades would probably shadow-travel me out into the maze anyway. All I could do was walk out there with my head held high.

I rose slowly, and checked my weapons. As I stepped over to the door, it struck me how much I'd changed in just a year: the Cyrus Wright who'd first come to camp a year ago definitely wouldn't have gone through with this, and yet here I was, about to enter the Coliseum of the Dead.

As I left the room, I couldn't help but wonder if the Cyrus Wright who'd come to camp last year had been a much wiser, much less suicidal individual.

Then again, to truly enjoy life, sometimes you have no choice but to look into the darkness.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

**Piece of Darkness II - Gambit**

* * *

**Chapter Ten**

* * *

_"Are you Death?"_

_IT'S THE SCYTHE, ISN'T IT. PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE._

–Terry Pratchett, 'The Fifth Elephant'

* * *

Death stood at the other end of the tunnel.

I'm not being dramatic or poetic here. Death - or Thanatos, as he is also known - was literally standing at the end of the tunnel, waiting to lead me across the arena.

I already knew what he looked like - I'd asked Nico about him once - but he was still quite a startling apparition. There was no stereotypically grim robes or shiny scythe, and his face was not ominously obscured by a dark hood. He was tall, muscular and tanned, with dark hair and gold eyes. He was clad in a simple tunic, and the only strange thing about his appearance was his purple-blue wings. They were folded demurely at his sides, but even still they gave him a majestic appearance. It was easy to see where the term "Angel of Death" originated.

His aura was a mixture of purple and gold, but it wasn't as aggressive as Hades' aura. It was, in fact, oddly soothing, and it gave Thanatos a very calming presence.

"Greetings, Cyrus Wright," he said quietly. His voice was equally soothing, with not a single harsh note while not being overly soft. "Please, follow me."

He turned and started walking across the arena, heading for the tunnel that led down into the maze. I followed, keeping a couple of steps back in case he suddenly opened those wings.

I glanced around as we walked. The silent, watching spirits were still there, of course, and Hades sat on a large balcony which was directly above the entrance to the maze. I couldn't make out the god's expression from this distance, but what I could see of his posture showed that he was watching intently. I cast around for my friends, but I couldn't see a hint of them anywhere. A shiver of alarm cut through me, and I quickly silenced it: I had to stay calm, or else I would end up in an incomprehensibly tricky situation.

Thanatos began to speak, telling me about what I was about to face. His voice was low, and he didn't look over his shoulder or turn his head to one side, but I heard him perfectly clearly nonetheless.

"The course you are about to enter has three sections. Each one contains a specific challenge which you must overcome to progress to the next. If you fail at any point during the maze, you will be immediately shadow-travelled out, and you will be disqualified from the Shadow Games. You successfully complete the Games by locating the exit at the end of the course. Your every move will be watched by Hades and the rest of the audience, but you will not see them. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said shakily. I wondered what failure in the maze would entail. The rules Thanatos had set out made me feel a little more confident that I wouldn't end up dead at the end of all this, but my fear of the obstacles lurking in the course beneath us continued to grow.

Finally, we reached the entrance to the tunnel. Thanatos stopped just short of it, and turned to face me.

"You can, at this point, choose to withdraw from the Games," he said, surveying me emotionlessly with those unnerving gold eyes.

I thought quickly. I hadn't actually thought of just pulling out, but right then it seemed like a great idea. Then again, I felt pretty sure that none of the others had, so wouldn't I just look like a coward if I withdrew? However great my fear, my pride was greater.

"I don't want to withdraw," I told him.

"Very well," Thanatos said. He stepped to one side, leaving my way into the maze clear. "Good luck."

I swallowed shakily, and glanced around at the ghostly audience one last time, before stepping forward. Two steps, and I was at the edge of the tunnel. One step more, and I was in it.

I'd barely entered the tunnel - Thanatos was still only a foot away - when the ground lurched beneath me. I blinked, and I was suddenly in utter darkness.

I span around in alarm. All traces of the entrance to the course had vanished. I looked above me, but saw nothing but more darkness. My alarm began to skyrocket, and I fought to bring it to a halt by standing stock-still and taking a long, deep breath. Obviously I'd been brought directly into the maze. That was it. I wasn't dead. I just had to stay calm.

After a moment of this rationalisation, my fear ebbed away a little. Then, as soon as my mind cleared, the darkness around me also began to break up. A dull ambient light started to illuminate my surroundings, and soon I could see as much as five feet in front of me.

There wasn't much _to_ see. Behind me, there was a dark stone wall. Above me, there was a dark stone ceiling. On either side of me—

You get the idea. I was in an another dim, stony tunnel.

I took another deep breath, and started walking. I couldn't hear a sound, nor smell a scent. There was nothing down here except the light that came from nowhere and the walls which hemmed me in. A jolt of fear ran through me as I imagined being stuck down here. It would be the worst possible death: slow, silent, almost painless. I'd probably go mad long before the starvation got to me.

I shook myself. Thinking like that was stupid. I had to focus on moving and keeping alert.

I walked on, always keeping a hand on my sword in case some terrible beast suddenly appeared before me. I was tempted to draw it, but it occurred to me that the noise of doing so could alert any of said terrible beasts to my presence.

Suddenly, with strange abruptness, I was standing at a fork in the tunnel. The passage had widened and now diverged into two different stony corridors. I frowned at them, thinking. Was this the first test? Or did this decide what kind of test I would face?

I shrugged, and decided to go on instinct, marching down the right-hand passage.

Two minutes later, I was standing at another intersection.

I frowned again. This fork looked very similar to the last one… But then it was difficult to tell, with the bad light. I took the right tunnel again.

Two minutes later, once more, I found myself at a fork.

Okay. This _really_ looked like it was the same one. Thinking that perhaps I'd taken the wrong turn, I turned around, but behind me there was nothing except stone wall.

My alarm began to mount up again, but I gritted my teeth and pushed it away. Obviously there was no going backwards, so I was sure to find the right way by going forwards. For the sake of variety, I took the left tunnel.

Guess what happened after two minutes.

I cursed softly. This was serious creepy maze material. Was I trapped? Had I already failed?

No, I reasoned. I hadn't been shadow-travelled out, so I still had a chance.

Walking faster, I took the left tunnel again.

When I came back to the intersection, I didn't pause to think, but walked on into the right-hand tunnel. Still, I kept coming back to the same turning. I paused, and realised that I had to establish if this really _was_ the same turning. I dug into my pockets. Unfortunately, I had no convenient piece of chalk or even a felt marker. All I could come up with was a scrap of paper. After a moment's consideration, I bent down and found a loose rock on the ground. I slipped the paper underneath it, and took the left passage.

When I came back to the fork, I bent down again and searched for the rock. Sure enough, I found it - and underneath lay my little piece of paper.

My thoughts reeled. Something really weird was making me go round and round in a circle. I glanced over my shoulder again, and still there was nothing behind except stone wall. Trying not to think too much, trying to hold back the tide of panic, I took the right tunnel.

I raced around and around, alternating tunnels, taking each one three times in a row, walking backwards down them, closing my eyes and walking randomly, crawling along on my hands and knees. I shouted at the tunnels, threw rocks down them, drew my sword, put it away again, and even looked for an overhead trapdoor.

Finally, I slumped down on the ground, momentarily exhausted.

This was insane. I simply could not get past this fork. My head was swimming - was I trapped here? I felt like a hamster on a wheel, except this was a wheel of doom. There had to be some solution, but I just couldn't see it. The fork returned and returned, always the same, never once varying. Every time, I found my piece of paper under the loose rock. I was stuck in an infinite loop, an unending nightmare of a tunnel. If only, I thought desperately, I could walk through walls.

_Walk through walls_.

Inspiration struck me.

What if I wasn't _meant_ to go down one of the tunnels? What if there was another passage, hidden from view, which was the real way out?

I stood up slowly, staring, but not at the two tunnels which seemed to be malevolently tormenting me. No, I focussed on the sliver of wall that separated the openings of the two passages. I approached, almost tentatively, and rested my hand on it.

It was solid - cold and solid, unyielding rock. There was no way out there. I turned away.

_But wait_, I thought. _What if it _isn't_ solid? What if it's just an illusion?_

I turned back to that slice of stone and reached deep down in my mind, drawing upon the full purity of my sight. It took an effort: I hadn't actively used my sight since last summer, when I'd needed it to help us escape from Wilson's cellar.

Immediately, my perception of the scene began to contort. It was a little dizzying, as the structure of the tunnels before me twisted. That wall that divided the two passages faded and the space between the two tunnels widened. My sight gradually showed me what the reality of the maze was, and a third tunnel came into view.

I gaped at it in astonishment. My concentration slipped, and this third passage started to fade away, but I refocussed, and it snapped back into view. Somehow, an illusion of shadows was hiding this escape route from my normal vision.

I stepped forward, moving into the passage. A whole new chamber opened up before me: far larger than the narrow passage which I'd been previously walking down. I let go of my sight and stepped further into the passage. It didn't vanish when the enhanced part of my sight faded back into the recesses of my mind, and as I walked on, no menacing intersection reappeared to taunt me.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. My fear, which had been on the cusp of becoming uncontrollable, began to gradually fade out of the realms of sheer terror as I realised that I had passed the first section of the maze.

This new area was much less of a claustrophobe's nightmare. The ceilings were about fifteen feet high - rather than seven feet - and the passage was far wider. In the first tunnel, I couldn't stretch out my arms at all, but here I could do so without being anywhere near touching the sides.

After trudging along for a few minutes, I became aware of another new feature: there was a faint whispering in the air, too quiet to make out, but just loud enough to be audible when I stood still. It was eerie and ghostlike, with no discernible words, but it had a clear tone of aggression. I did what I could to block it out by walking a little more noisily, but it didn't go away.

My own thoughts began to grow darker. Even though I'd gotten through the first section, I started to feel increasingly pessimistic. All I could think of was that if the first part had been that hard, I surely wouldn't have a chance when it came to face the next challenge.

I paused. A chill ran down my spine as I realised that the whispering was growing louder and more aggressive. I still couldn't make out any words, but it didn't take a great leap of imagination to tell that whoever - or _what_ever - was speaking did not wish me a healthy and happy life.

Though it was a pretty bad moment for it, my sense of being persecuted by the universe reared its angsty head. I felt like shouting at the weird whisperman to take his bad attitude somewhere else. I had enough rubbish to deal with, what with having to walk through walls and all.

Remembering that I was being watched from above, I resisted the urge to start shouting. I walked on doggedly, trying to assume an air of disaffected uninterestedness, refusing to pay any further heed to the whispers. Perhaps they would simply go away if I ignored them aggressively enough.

(If only life were that simple.)

After a while, I noticed that the tunnel was growing larger still. The ceiling was getting higher and the passage was slowly widening out.

I began to feel a little edgier. Even though the small tunnel had been unpleasant, this wider space was even more worrying. There were far more crevices and shadows for monsters to hide in. My pace was slowing considerably as I kept checking every corner and every piece of darkness that could be harbouring a bloodthirsty beast.

Abruptly, the tunnel opened out into a vast chamber.

I stopped, gazing around in disbelief. I hadn't seen the opening into this chamber coming - one minute I'd been in the passage, the next I was here, in a massive cave big enough to hold a cathedral. I glanced over my shoulder, but sure enough, there was nothing to see except more stone wall.

I slowly turned in a complete circle, examining the chamber. Most of it was veiled in darkness - the dull ambient light that lit the main tunnel system didn't reach into most of this larger area. I could barely make out the ceiling because it was so dark, and it was only after a long moment of squinting that I saw an entrance back into the main tunnel in the wall directly opposite me. I started walking towards it, then stopped again as a chilling realisation struck me.

I'd been so carefully blocking out the whispering, I'd stopped paying attention to its increase in volume. Now, though, it was impossible to ignore. It had begun as a distant murmuring and had become loud and clear, and I realised why. The second I'd entered the chamber, the whispers had become a great deal clearer, and now they were coming from all around me.

All that time, I'd been walking directly towards the source of the whispers, and that source was right here in this chamber.

I gulped. The whispers were all in one voice - a low, angry one - and it was speaking in Ancient Greek. I wasn't even remotely fluent in the language of the gods, but I didn't need to be, because that shadowy voice was murmuring only one word, over and over.

_Lightbringer_.

I knew that word, and it meant nothing and yet everything. It was the word which, to me, embodied the mysteries that enveloped my life. It was the name which Jake Wilson had called me by the first time we'd met, and it was the name which had never quite left my mind.

Suddenly, there was a disturbance in the air on my left. I started to tense, readying for an attack, but I was way too slow. The darkness rippled around me and I was flung off my feet. I was thrown ten feet to the right - ten feet deeper into the darkness, into the shadows which the light could not penetrate.

The extensive training which I'd worked on with Percy kicked in and I managed to get onto my hands and knees before another wave tried to knock me back. This time, my centre of gravity was lower and I held firm. I staggered onto my feet and reached out with my sight just in time to sense a third ripple of shadow. I quickly stepped to one side, dodging the attack.

The whispers had paused during this, but now, as the strange, disembodied attack paused, they recommenced. I noticed a slight change in tone: the voice sounded angrier and, perhaps, a little surprised. I drew my sword, planted my feet firmly on the ground and waited.

Nothing came for a long moment. The initial dose of adrenaline began to ebb away and my fear crept back. What was out there? Was it some sort of omnipresent menace? How could I possibly get past that?

When no fresh attack came, I got impatient and decided to make a break for it. I started running for the exit.

I'd barely taken three steps when three pulses of shadow tore towards me. I ducked one, caught the edge of the second with my sword, but the third was too much. I tumbled to the ground and rolled along the ground for a few feet.

I paused before getting up again. Whatever monster was out there, I considered, it was using the darkness like a hand - grasping around me and flinging me about like a rag doll. I couldn't get past more than two of these strikes at once, so all I could do was make myself less of a target.

I jumped to my feet and took off again, this time running in a zig-zag pattern. It worked - for about two yards. Then another ripple came with greater force, and I was thrown to the ground.

I groaned, looking over at the exit. It was another twenty feet away. I'd never make it by walking. I was reduced, it seemed, to crawling, keeping as close to the ground as possible.

That didn't go too great either, I'd gotten a good couple of inches closer to the exit when my tormentor twisted the darkness around my ankles and dragged me back into the edges of the cave.

I thrashed around on the ground, trying to break free of the invisible creature's grip. It was like an iron fist had grasped around my legs, though I could barely feel it. My fear started to grow stronger and my will to keep going began to dwindle. What was the point? I should just let go, let myself be rescued from this madness.

I shook myself. No. I had to keep going. I would never forgive myself if I just gave up.

"Who are you?" I growled, almost involuntarily. "_What_ are you?"

The darkness a few feet in front of me coalesced, bending and forming into a dim shape. As I watched, the shape gained definition, becoming clear: it was the form of a skeleton, and a seriously scary one at that. It was clad in cracked, dull armour, and a jagged sword hung loosely from a cord wrapped around its hips.

The creature's jaw creaked open, and that cold, ominous voice whispered, "I am Phrice, ancient spirit of horror, and you, Cyrus Wright, shall not leave this chamber with your mind intact."


End file.
